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Peeling Back Your PKI Onion: Can I Trust My PKI?

PKI

“What makes a digital certificate secure?”

When I ask this question to our customers, the answer I get back most of the time is something like “it has a secure algorithm” or “it is issued from a certificate authority (CA) and not self-signed.”

Although these answers are both correct, there are so many more factors that make a PKI trustworthy. PKI is not only about the ability to issue a certificate from a CA, but also the overall plan and process of how a CA is secured and managed.

Let’s dive in a little more.

The C-Suite Misconception of PKI

Many CIOs and CISOs that I speak with have the misconception that just because their organization has a PKI that they are inherently secure, which is often not true. I commonly find that the security teams implementing the PKI are focused purely on giving their organization the ability to issue certificates from a technical perspective.

This leads to the common scenario of someone clicks “Next… Next… Next… “ during the install of the CA, and proclaiming “I got it working!”. While this may accomplish the goal of having a PKI, it does not meet the long-term security goals of the company.

Building a Multi-layered PKI

A good PKI implementation should be multi-layered and go beyond the narrow focus of issuing certificates. The implementation should be a well-thought-out, planned execution that considers all aspects of securing the PKI. This should consider securing the keys from both external and internal threats.

Who has access to the virtualization infrastructure and disks? Who has physical access to the datacenter? Who has access to the backups? All of these are potential points of compromise.

Components of Multi-layered PKI

Let’s unravel the PKI onion. As an executive, how do you know if your organization’s PKI is trustworthy? Below is a quick quiz that can identify some issues in the often overlooked areas of PKI security and help you assess the trustworthiness of your PKI infrastructure.

If you answer these questions honestly and find yourself answering “no” or “I don’t know” to many of the questions, it is time to re-think your PKI strategy.

PKI Onion

Layer Questions to Ask
Overall Architecture
  • Is the architecture well designed with an offline root CA and dedicated issuing CA?
  • Are CP and CPS documents in place, and audited to ensure practices are being followed?
Datacenter Access
  • Is the data center’s physical security adequate? (Biometric controls, anti-tailgating, video surveillance)
  • Are all personnel trusted, thoroughly vetted through background checks?
Physical Server Access
  • Are the CA servers protected from physical access? (locking racks, cages, secure storage)
  • Are multi-person controls enforced when accessing private keys?
Virtualization Infrastructure
  • Who has permissions to the virtualized servers? Can virtual disk files be accessed by non-PKI admins?
  • Are processes in place to prevent virtualized hardware from being migrated to an unsecured location?
Operating System
  • Who has admin rights to the CA? Is it more than the deigned team that should have access to CA keys?
  • Is backup data encrypted and secured so that it cannot be rebuilt without appropriate access?
Certificate Authority
  • Is CA access restricted to only PKI admins, or do larger groups such as Domain Admins have permissions?
  • Are all log files collected and archived for an adequate period of time, and reviewed for abnormal activity?
HSM
  • Are all private keys stored in an HSM?
Keys
  • Do you know if your private keys even been stored on unsecured media or transfer via non-secure means?

Moving Forward

Can an untrusted PKI be made trustworthy again? Unfortunately, the answer is typically no.   Once a PKI has been deployed with poor key management practices, it is usually better to just start over with a new strategy and fresh implementation. This is due to the fact that you do not know if your keys have already been compromised.

There is the potential risk that an insecure copy of one of your critical certificates has already been downloaded or stored in an insecure location which could be compromised later.  For this reason, it is probably best to just re-design properly and start over.

Don’t try to go down this path alone.  If you discover that it may be time to update your PKI, Keyfactor has a team of PKI experts that are ready to help.  We can deploy the best practices PKIaaS infrastructure that will provide the level of trust that you need to know that your data and applications are secured and reliable.