security

Remote work has dramatically expanded enterprise attack surfaces, forcing security teams to rethink how they protect networks, endpoints and applications outside traditional perimeters. Organizations are now dealing with more devices, more integrations and more vulnerabilities—all of which require fast, scalable security controls. Public Key Infrastructure as a Service (PKIaaS) provides this agility by delivering cloud-managed certificate issuance and lifecycle management without the operational overhead of maintaining in‑house PKI. Survey data shows that most cybersecurity professionals expect long-term, pandemic-driven changes to security strategy, with remote work placing sustained pressure on access, patching and authentication practices. To adapt, enterprises need modern PKI capabilities that automate certificate provisioning, support Zero Trust, secure virtual desktop environments and authenticate remote employees across diverse devices. HID PKIaaS offers managed certificate services that enable secure authentication, encrypted communications and automated certificate lifecycle management through integrations like Microsoft Intune, VMWare AirWatch, Microsoft Autoenrollment and standards-based protocols such as SCEP, EST and ACME. Organizations can choose simple issuing CA services or fully customized private root PKI deployments, reducing cost and complexity while improving the security baseline. Teams should assess their remote‑work security gaps, prioritize certificate‑based authentication and encryption across devices and applications and adopt PKIaaS to scale Zero Trust protections across hybrid, mobile and IoT environments.

PKI and digital certificates underpin secure communication across modern networks, enabling authentication, encryption and data integrity for users, devices and applications. This blog explains the foundational concepts behind PKI, starting with public key cryptography, which uses paired public and private keys to encrypt and decrypt information. PKI builds on this by defining the policies, technologies and processes needed to issue, manage and validate digital certificates through trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs). These certificates bind identities to public keys and are used across applications such as secure email, eCommerce and online banking. The article also clarifies key PKI terminology, including Certificate Authorities, digital certificates, qualified certificates, advanced electronic signatures and qualified electronic signatures under eIDAS. It outlines industry bodies like the CA/Browser Forum, and certificate types such as EV certificates, wildcard certificates and SAN certificates—each serving different identity assurance and domain coverage needs. With PKI’s growing role in securing digital ecosystems, organizations must understand these components to ensure strong, scalable and compliant security practices.

As organizations adopt hybrid cloud environments and face increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) remains a critical tool for securing users, devices, applications and machine-to-machine communications. However, deploying and managing PKI internally can be complex, requiring specialized expertise, ongoing maintenance and significant investment to keep pace with evolving security and compliance requirements. These challenges are driving organizations toward managed PKI-as-a-Service (PKIaaS) solutions that simplify operations while maintaining strong security and control. Cloud-based PKIaaS enables organizations to outsource the complexity of certificate management while gaining scalability, operational efficiency and compliance support. Benefits include automated certificate lifecycle management, centralized visibility, flexible deployment options, integration with enterprise tools and the ability to quickly expand security services without additional infrastructure investments. By leveraging managed PKI services, organizations can improve security, reduce operational burdens and support modern hybrid environments with a scalable, cost-effective foundation for digital trust.

The industry continues to shorten TLS/SSL certificate lifespans to strengthen security by reducing the exposure window if keys are compromised. Following this trend, Apple announced that starting September 1, 2020, TLS server certificates will be limited to a maximum validity of 398 days, and other major browsers are expected to follow. Existing two‑year certificates issued before that date remain valid, but all new certificates must comply with the one‑year limit. Public CAs, including HID IdenTrust, are updating issuance policies accordingly and will no longer provide two‑year certificates after mid‑August 2020. Organizations still relying on longer‑lived certificates must plan for accelerated renewal cycles to maintain compliance and avoid service disruptions. HID encourages customers to secure remaining two‑year certificates before the deadline and use updated tools for streamlined certificate management.

TLS/SSL certificates are essential for securing communications between browsers and web servers, protecting sensitive information through encryption and identity verification. These certificates use public and private key cryptography to establish trusted, encrypted connections and come in varying assurance levels, including Domain Validation (DV), Organization Validation (OV) and Extended Validation (EV). While DV certificates only verify domain ownership, OV and EV certificates provide higher levels of organizational identity validation, making them more suitable for business and customer-facing applications. As certificate lifespans continue to shorten, managing renewals and maintaining compliance has become increasingly challenging for enterprises. Organizations must not only select the appropriate certificate type based on their security and business requirements, but also implement certificate lifecycle management processes to automate issuance, renewal and monitoring. Effective certificate management helps reduce operational overhead, prevent outages caused by expired certificates and maintain trust across websites and digital services.

FIDO2 is an open authentication standard designed to provide secure, phishing‑resistant and passwordless access to online services. Built on WebAuthn and the Client-to-Authenticator Protocol (CTAP), FIDO2 uses public‑key cryptography to authenticate users through security keys, smart cards or mobile devices. Its simplicity, low deployment cost and strong protection against credential theft have driven rapid adoption among enterprises looking to strengthen authentication while improving user experience. While FIDO2 and PKI both rely on asymmetric cryptography, they serve different but complementary purposes. FIDO2 focuses on user authentication and passwordless access, whereas PKI provides a broader framework for identity management, encryption, digital signatures and secure communications. Organizations increasingly deploy FIDO2 as a lightweight authentication layer alongside existing PKI infrastructure, using FIDO2 for secure logins and PKI for protecting applications, devices, documents and machine-to-machine communications. Together, these technologies help reduce phishing risk, strengthen identity assurance and support modern Zero Trust security strategies.