Legacy and manual PKI approaches drive up costs and risk
CyberArk recently announced the findings of a new report: Trends in PKI Security: A Global Study of Trends, Challenges & Business Impact.
Conducted by Ponemon Institute, a leading independent research firm, the CyberArk-commissioned research analyzes perspectives from nearly 2,000 IT and security practitioners globally on the state of public key infrastructure (PKI) security.
It reveals that outdated PKI systems are the leading barrier to secure certificate management, fueling security exploits in 60% of organizations.
PKI is a system for creating and managing digital certificates that verify the identities of users and devices. Modern identity demands, driven by the rise of machine and workload identities across cloud native and zero trust environments, have resulted in unprecedented certificate growth and complexity.
Digital identity
The report shows that PKI remains essential for secure digital identity, but legacy systems with fragmented approaches and manual, human-led processes can’t keep up with today’s certificate needs.
Without a modern, automated approach, the gap between certificate demand and organizational capacity will only widen, leaving organizations facing resource constraints and increased operational costs.
“The rapid expansion of machine identities has completely changed the PKI operating model. The complexity of managing an increasing number of certificates is compounded by legacy systems, manual processes and resource constraints,” stated Kurt Sand, General Manager, Machine Identity Security, CyberArk.
Compliance
The report finds that overall confidence in compliance and security is low. Organizations investing in automation and unified visibility see reduced operational burdens, fewer outages and better levels of PKI compliance.
“To increase PKI’s effectiveness, I believe more companies will be adopting AI to reduce operational burdens and have stronger security outcomes,” asserted Dr. Larry Ponemon, Chairman and Founder, Ponemon Institute.
