Certificate lifecycle management is also called as certificate management system. It consists of generations, storage, distribution and verification of certificates for using them in a secured enhanced application. The format of the certificate is defined in the X.509 standard. CLM allows the individual to manage every piece of their lifecycle for an individual certificate.
The digital certificate deployed by the organizations should include certificate lifecycle management solution to make a strong base for their enterprise network.
Digital certificates are electronic key that are used to reward the individuals, computers and other entities. As they act as machine entities, they are rewarded with digital certificates that matches their identification cards such as Aadhar card or drivers’ licenses. For instance, Aadhar card or drivers’ licenses are issued to the individual by government authorities in the same way digital certificates are issued to individual by certificate authority.
To make the transaction work smoothly and in a secured way private and public networks are used for boosting to take care of the data and accomplish risky transaction. This has been made very important for identification of the device, individual or services on the other side. While transaction the account and strong passwords help in identification of the user but on the other side less no protection is given.
Digital certificate has date of maturity after it is matured it is no longer trusted. Digital certificates have a maturity period of at least one to three years depending on the company regulation. To avoid decreasing security the certificates needs to be replaced at the end of their life. There can be number situation where you might have to replace your certificates. Sometimes situation like the certificate is not working properly the sensitive information of the company, damage in sales, everyday business, customer confidence and trust the company will be under attack and be exploited.
It varies from person to person, there are around three to six stages in the certificate lifecycle management. They are as follows:
- Certificate enrollment – a user requests a certificate then the CA verifies the individual depending upon on the details given and then issues the certificate to the individual. While issuing the certificates the CA sets rules that affect the usage of the certificates.
- Certificate verification – the certificates status is check by the serial number on the certificate to find out that the certificate is trusted or revoked.
- Certificate revocation – each and every digital certificate is issued with a date of maturity. After the certificate is matured the certificate will be automatically transferred to certificate revocation list.
- Certificate destructive – after the maturity of the certificate the certificates backup, archives and the private key are destroyed. This prevents the certificate by not being used and compromised.
- Certificate auditing – it consists of checking the maturity date, revocation list, tracking the creation.
It is a must factor for the businesses to manage their digital certificate across complex networks from getting attacked or prevent failures. Identification of the certificate is not the only issues locating the certificate on time is a bigger issue. By the adoption of certificate lifecycle management, the approach to aspect like meeting the compliance and use of high technology to upgrade efficiency. Apple has declared that the SSL certificate maturity will be valid for 398 days. From managing the certificate till tracing, them such activities require proper tool to make this work effectively.
Certificates can get lost and then expire and cause exploitation if you are without certificate lifecycle management. Although digital certificates are the foundation of network security and play a crucial part in the online, wouldn’t you want to manage them properly. Certificate lifecycle management should not be control manually. To have continuous monitoring of their system and digital certificates, generate audits, expiration notification, renewal notification and prevent exploitation in service the businesses should adopt a CLM service. Nowadays businesses rely on PKI solution for addressing their certificate lifecycle management. The organization can be fined for such wrong doing with several regulations such as GDPR.
To prevent unanticipated failures the business should manage the SSL certificate across complex networks consequently. By adopting certificate lifecycle management system allows you to use high technology which helps in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of certificate management.
5 best practices for Certificate Lifecycle Management:
- Have clarity
Always make sure that you have control of every certificate. This help in scanning the web server to verify the CA issued certificate and locating them from where they are installed. This also help to simplify which certificate are trusted, untrusted and unsecured certificates. Scanning must be performed to locate certificates and host names.
- Maintain inventory
Scanning is a continuous process. The result of the scan must be updated, stored in your existing stock. Simplification of certificates plays a major role in operation. For example, you might choose a bunch of certificates depending on whether they are used in experiments or producing environments.
- Exact policy
Organization has already exerted their policy as mandated by National institute of standard and technology. For instance, you might have chosen high technology mechanism that will automatically renew the certificate that have crossed their 80% of their maturity period. Such mechanism helps you to recover data quickly from crucial exploitation.
- Protecting private keys
Although protecting key must be given importance but #1 priority must be removing humans from the key management exercise. The possibility of theft is always there when there are humans’ elements handling the management exercise.
- End to end supervision
PKI infrastructures are to be supervised for weak links although having a high technology certificate management process. There is a requirement of a system that ties your certificates around numerous CAs and high technology software. Such system tracks the maturity and redundancy and notification are sent to the user prior of the maturity.
Organization who has no proper certificate lifecycle management will face security and managements issues such certificate that gets lost in the system, lost revenue expiry and reputation. Certificate lifecycle management system is derived for uncompromising managements program for your organization. Certificate play an important role in online trust and area base for network security as machine identities.
To see that the certificate lifecycle management is working effectively the certificates are to placed and combine into one management system. The employees may perform supervision of system and certificates and generate an audit for agreement purpose. This system helps to decrease the total cost of managing the SSL Certificate around the surrounding.
