Certificate management has never been more complex. Between shorter certificate lifespans, increasing security expectations, and mounting operational risk, one thing is clear: manual processes can’t keep up. That’s why the new issue of Digital Trust Digest focuses squarely on one theme: automation!
The magazine draws on insights from 450 PKI and certificate management practitioners to look more deeply into automation trends: What’s driving the move toward automation, what’s slowing it down, and why it’s essential to build trust in a post-quantum, multi-cloud world.
Inside the latest issue, you’ll find original thought leadership and expert insights, including:
- Automation ROI: Saving Time, Cutting Risk, Boosting Resilience
By Bankim Chandra, CEO, Dotsquares Ltd.
Bankim’s article looks at how organizations are reducing costs and risks by automating certificate lifecycle management.
- The Automation Governance Gap: Who’s in Charge of the Bots?
By Admir Abdurahmanovic, SVP of Strategy, Keyfactor
Admir’s article explores why, without clear governance, even good intentions can create new vulnerabilities.
- Crypto-Agility at Scale: Why Automation is a Pre-Req for Post-Quantum
By Ted Shorter, CTO & Co-Founder, Keyfactor
Ted’s article looks at how the quantum era is coming faster than expected – and why crypto-agility starts with automation today.
- Too Many Tools, Too Little Time: Making Automation Work Across Silos
By Todd Beldham, Founder & CTO, Unsung Limited
Todd’s article dives into the organizational friction that can derail even the best-laid automation plans.
Digital Trust Digest: 5 Tips About Automation
Here are 5 quick takeaways from the magazine – with tips you can implement today.
#1 – Manual Certificate Management is a Ticking Time Bomb
Let’s say it plainly: Spreadsheets don’t scale.
As certificate lifespans shrink, manual methods become a liability. The companies we interviewed revealed a simple truth: many security teams are spending their time chasing certificates instead of upgrading their radar.
Here’s why it matters:
- The average organization manages thousands to hundreds of thousands of certificates.
- Many teams still rely on desktop spreadsheets, ticketing systems, or shell scripts to track expiration dates.
- This creates visibility gaps and increases the risk of production outages, customer disruption, and compliance violations.
Action steps:
- Centralize certificate management with a platform that supports automated discovery and renewal.
- Build visibility across environments – on-prem, cloud-native, DevOps, containers, and beyond.
- Ditch reactive firefighting in favor of proactive security posture management.
#2 – Lack of Visibility is the Root Cause of Certificate Chaos
If you can’t see it, you can’t secure it. Unfortunately, most organizations still lack a real-time, centralized inventory of certificates. And that creates serious risk.
What visibility gaps cause:
- False alarms that waste time and exhaust your team
- Orphaned or expired certs hiding in shadow IT or dev environments
- Unknown third-party certs in the supply chain, ripe for compromise
What to do about it:
- Use discovery and automation to create a live inventory of every certificate in use.
- Extend visibility to third-party certs (if it touches your brand, it’s your problem).
- Integrate with cloud and DevOps tools to eliminate blind spots before they become breach points.
#3 – Shorter Lifespans = Bigger Headaches Without Automation
Certificate Authorities are shrinking lifespans to bolster security, but at what cost to operations?
By 2029, the industry is moving toward 47-day certificate lifecycles. For teams still managing certs manually, that’s an impossible pace.
Let’s do the math:
- You have 150,000 certs.
- You get 47 days per cert before it needs renewal.
- You have a two-person team managing certs.
This is how outages happen.
Why automation is non-negotiable:
- Manual renewal workflows can’t keep up with shortened lifespans.
- Renewals every 47 days mean constant disruption if not automated.
- One missed renewal can mean hours of downtime and millions in lost revenue.
Solutions to consider:
- Automate certificate issuance, rotation, and renewal.
- Create policy-based workflows to handle renewal logic.
- Monitor certificate health in real-time with integrated alerting.
#4 – Certificate Sprawl Is a Silent Killer
Let’s talk about the ghosts in your machine. Certificates live everywhere…your cloud platforms, CI/CD pipelines, containers, mobile apps, SaaS tools, even Wi-Fi authentication systems.
Signs you have a sprawl problem:
- Certificates still tied to retired infrastructure or former employees
- Developers spinning up instances without proper cert rotation
- Unknown certs showing up in audits or pen tests
Action steps:
- Enforce least-privilege access with role-based certificate issuance.
- Regularly scan environments for unmanaged or orphaned certs.
- Set policies for dev/test environments to prevent key reuse and sprawl.
#5 – Compliance Is Only as Good as Your Certificate Governance
Security is also about proving you’re in control. If your system is built on spreadsheets and outdated manual processes, your audit trail is full of holes.
Compliance risks from poor governance:
- Unlogged certificate changes make it impossible to prove compliance
- Lack of role-based access controls opens the door to insider threats
- No documentation of who issued or renewed what, and when
Governance through automation:
- Role-based access tied to corporate identity systems
- Automated logging and reporting for every certificate action
- Policy enforcement across teams and business units
Don’t Be the Next Headline
Every expired certificate is a story waiting to be told. Automation brings the speed, scale, and governance needed to stay ahead of outages and threats.
With certificate lifespans getting shorter and environments growing more complex, crypto-agility is essential to survival.
Next steps:
- Download the new automation issue of Digital Trust Digest to get real-world, practical guidance on certificate automation.
- Get a custom demo to see how Keyfactor can help your organization build trust in every connection.
