Cybersecurity is at the forefront of maintaining seamless business operations by preventing cyberattacks and maintaining security compliance your customers can rely on. However, if you’re still manually maintaining your PKI manager system, learn how automated certificate management can significantly benefit your business.
PKI Managers and their Link to Automated Certificate Lifecycle Management
Using public key infrastructures (PKIs) to protect your network requires the authentication and identification of users and binding those identities to encryption or decryption keys when connecting to your network. A certificate management system is put in place in the form of SSL or TLS certificates to authenticate and identify users that attempt to access your network.
Once the certificates are created, the certificate authority that validates users’ identities does not allow you to use the same one forever for obvious security reasons. You must maintain a certificate lifecycle management process for each certificate that expires or ones you may have to revoke intentionally.
Once the certificate expires, or you withdraw one without replacing it, this can have unfavorable consequences such as:
- A vulnerability in your system that cybercriminals can exploit
- Network outages and downtime that adversely affect business operations
- Violations of security compliance
Automating your certificate management system will ensure that expired and revoked certificates are automatically destroyed, renewed, and replaced. Then the lifecycle continues without interruption to request, create, verify, issue, store, expire, and destroy replacement certificates.
The Advantages of an Automated Certificate Management System
Taking advantage of an automated certificate management system has benefits that will thwart security vulnerabilities and result in efficient business operations. An automated certificate management system will eliminate human error, create a more efficient IT department, and reduce or eliminate business operations downtime.
Eliminates Human Error
The most apparent advantage or benefit of an automated certificate management system is that it eliminates manual errors. The manual maintenance of these systems requires that IT personnel keep track of expiration dates and make sure that they install every certificate correctly and securely. If they make a mistake, this can compromise your business operations. With a comprehensive certificate management system, the human error factor is removed.
IT Personnel Workload is Made More Efficient
The time and complexity required to perform the manual maintenance of a certificate management system don’t allow for other vital IT tasks to be accomplished. With an automated certificate management system, IT support personnel can focus on other tasks, such as installing and configuring the software and hardware of company computers or solving technical issues more efficiently.
Maintains Business Continuity
Failure to properly maintain a certificate lifecycle system can result in problems for business operations. Excessive operational downtime due to cyberattacks, network outages, or security compliance issues is not an option. When automating your certificate management system, you’ll know that your business operations will continue without interruption.
Prevent Security Breaches and Business Interruptions With Certificate Lifecycle Automation
Incorporating recommended methods of fortifying your PKI manager system has many benefits. The certificate lifecycle is essential to PKI manager systems and should not be treated complacently. Incorporating automated certificate lifecycle management into your PKI manager systems will provide significant benefits and give you peace of mind.
With Sectigo’s comprehensive certificate management system, businesses can leverage advanced PKI Management tools, thereby enhancing their IT security and ensuring smooth operation.
You may also like to read
