Lack of ownership, resources, and skills continues to challenge PKI deployments
Driven by organizational changes, enterprise use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates has never been higher, while the related skills to manage PKI are in historically short supply, according to research from Ponemon Institute, sponsored by Entrust, a global leader in trusted identity, payments and data protection. The 2021 Global PKI and IoT Trends Study also revealed that IT professionals continue to see lack of clear ownership, resources and skills as the top challenges in deploying and managing PKI.
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“PKI has never been in such high demand – whether from the pressure of securing a remote or hybrid workforce this past year, or the continued growth of IoT and cloud-based services.”
PKI is at the core of nearly every IT infrastructure, enabling security for critical digital initiatives such as cloud, mobile device deployment, identities and the internet of things (IoT). As such, PKI holds the key to enabling the digital transformation that these technologies underpin, something that has been thrown into sharp focus over the course of the global pandemic and its impact on working practices.
Drivers and challenges of PKI adoption
When it comes to the most important trends driving the deployment of applications using PKI, the Internet of Things (IoT) remains the fastest growing trend at 47%, with cloud-based services the second highest driver, cited by 44% of respondents, and consumer mobile coming in third at 40%.
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The top challenge that impedes the deployment and management of PKI is a lack of clear ownership – cited by 71% of respondents. Respondents have raised this issue as a top challenge for the past 5 years, indicating a key area of concern for many enterprises(Entrust).
Insufficient resources and insufficient skills were rated as the second and third challenges at 51% and 46% respectively. Similarly, the top challenges to enabling applications to utilize PKI were the existing PKI being incapable of supporting new applications (55%) and insufficient skills (46%).
The areas expected to experience the most change and uncertainty were newer applications, such the Internet of Things (IoT) – which took the top spot for 41% of those surveyed. The second and third most cited areas were external mandates and standards (37%) and changes in PKI technologies (27%).
“Over the years we have been doing this study, it is clear that the gap between the rising demand for PKI adoption and the challenges hindering it appear to be growing,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. “This has the potential to exacerbate the headaches organizations already feel and create gaps in their security postures. When you factor in that environments are more distributed with remote working, cloud and IoT, it’s clear that there’s an immediate need for many organizations to gain additional visibility, automation and centralized control(Entrust).”