Sectigo has seen demand increase significantly for its cloud-based Certificate Manager solution as large enterprises seek better protection from service interruptions and vulnerabilities during the global pandemic. The company’s digital identity management platform is helping complex organisations apply enterprise-grade Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), automation, and no-touch authentication to quickly secure and maintain operations across dispersed organisations.
“In recent months, Sectigo has seen three times the inbound information requests from large enterprises seeking to automate, consolidate, and manage the digital identities of employees and endpoints across their organisations,” said Jonathan Skinner, CMO, Sectigo. “Digital certificates are the gold standard for ensuring identity. Across the globe, our teams are helping customers rapidly deploy PKI solutions that solve today’s authentication challenges while future-proofing their businesses for tomorrow.”
Digital identity as new perimeter
Enterprises have historically provided protection within a firewalled network architecture
Sectigo Certificate Manager, the heart of Sectigo’s Digital Identity Management Platform, delivers the automation, orchestration, and visibility required for a Zero Trust strategy. The platform’s unique cloud-based system offers compelling advantages over on-premise alternatives. Compatible with all popular devices, operating systems, protocols, and chipsets, Sectigo Certificate Manager provides visibility into certificates of all types through a single cloud-based solution.
Enterprises have historically provided protection within a firewalled network architecture. However, this approach has evolved to accommodate complex environments with mobile devices, multi-cloud, DevOps, BYOD, IoT, and more, thus elevating digital identity as the new perimeter.
Digital Identity Management Platform
In this modern organisation, security teams often work toward a Zero Trust model where access and permissions are granted narrowly and as needed on a case-by-case basis to users, devices, and processes in the environment. For Zero Trust to be effective, enterprises need a proven digital identity mechanism, driving demand for automated cloud-based management of digital certificates.
The Sectigo Digital Identity Management Platform protects the Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) of the modern enterprise for all certificate use cases, including:
- TLS / SSL certificates for websites, internal servers, and DevOps environments
- Device and user certificates for easy-to-use, fool-proof access control
- Mobile device certificates to control access for BYOD and company-assigned devices
- S/MIME certificates to encrypt and authenticate email communication
- IoT certificates for securing connected devices
- Code signing certificates to ensure the integrity of all code running in an environment
Securing Remote Workforce
More than ever, IT teams understand how digital identities fit into their secure, geographically dispersed architecture. Automating the discovery, issuance, and renewal of public certificates saves time for security and operations personnel and reduces enterprise risk. Sectigo’s automation platform can be instrumental when rapidly migrating people, processes, and data to WFH environments, limiting risk and burden to employees, by following three steps:
Replace passwords with user identity certificates - PKI-based identity certificates are the strongest form of identity and make life easier for employees, reducing the burden of remembering, updating, and managing passwords. Replace multi-factor authentication with no-touch authentication - Unlike hardware-token multi-factor authentication (MFA), or SMS-based MFA, Sectigo digital certificates simplify the employee experience by easing the burden of security when a workforce is remote.
Security maintenance
Current pandemic is just one example of the risk organisations face when normal work processes are disrupted
Certificate-based authentication also offers the highest assurance that the people, devices, and processes are, in fact, legitimate. Automate the issuance of all identity certificates - Automation provides benefits across the certificate lifecycle, enabling IT security teams to issue, revoke, and replace certificates quickly, reliably, and at scale, while alleviating their management burden. The current pandemic is just one example of the risk organisations face when their normal work processes are disrupted.
During the 2018 U.S. government shutdown, many employees who managed security maintenance were furloughed, resulting in sweeping outages. In a single week, as many as 130 federal websites and services went offline or assumed risk due to certificate expirations.
Web Security Platform
Organisations must protect against the danger of outdated certificates as business continuity is tied to the livelihood of employees now more than ever. Sectigo helps prevent certificate-related outages through a broad range of automation technologies, including Enrollment over Secure Transport (EST), Secure Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP), and Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME), which integrates with a wide range of web servers, load balancers, and other networking gear, as well as DevOps environments.
Sectigo’s official website can be visited to learn more about the company’s Digital Identity Management Platform, IoT Identity Management Platform, or Web Security Platform.