One of the ultimate ways to protect your business from data threats is to rely on certificates. Through activities like renewals, revocation and authentication, certificates can help you create the ultimate security wall to secure your business strategic assets.

Additionally, certificate management is ideal for threat detection and prevention. It also helps in securing communication, networks, and IP resources. However, you must enforce the best certificate management practices to enjoy the security benefits. These practices ensure the certificates, authentication and key authorizations are not compromised.

Without these practices, the company's key resources are vulnerable to internal and external threats. As part of certificate life cycle management, your IT team should enforce and update these practices to keep up with the dynamic threats.  

Keep reading to understand some of the best practices and strategies that you should apply. 

1. Work with Experts 

Regardless of size, every organization needs experts to help with all the certificate management activities. You can integrate the team into your organization's IT team or allow them to operate independently. 

Hiring such staff can be costly, and if you choose to task the IT team with such roles, you need frequent training to enable them to handle all the roles.

Eventually, you are likely to incur more costs. Without the help of experts, it is difficult to solve major errors and issues. Certificate management involves various activities and roles; hence, you should outsource the services to an experienced team. Outsourcing such critical roles gives the in-house team space to focus on their key roles. 

With the help of experts, you are unlikely to compromise on security or forget key activities like certificate renewal and revocation. You also have the help of experts who can help you spot security threats quickly. With expert help, you can monitor all CA activities and safeguard keys from threats, especially external attacks.

2. Automating All The Key Functions

Outsourcing certificate management to third parties is costly. Such arrangements allow other unintended parties to see your private data and functions. If you entrust the in-house IT team with the certificate management roles, you will likely overwhelm them with more roles.

A typical organization has multiple certificates that would require a team to manage. Many roles are redundant for an employee to perform. Such limitations are likely to expose your organization to risks. Alternatively, the employees may not do the best job due to redundancy.

Automating key activities like certificate monitoring, renewal, and revocation is best to avoid all these challenges. You can outsource various cloud-based software to help you manage permission requests and all other certificate activities. 

With such software, you avoid unnecessary costs and mistakes that leave the company vulnerable to attack. Automated management will ensure you renew the certificate in time and revoke the certificates and permission quickly, preventing any security vulnerabilities. 

Other roles of automation include certificate issuance and access authorization. An automated system also records every activity, allowing you to monitor it. 

3. Enforce The Best Storage Strategies

Effective storage is crucial in managing company certificates; hence, you must invest in ideal storage. Due to security concerns, you should avoid on-premise storage unless considering hybrid management strategies. 

It is best to have a cloud storage system, which makes it easier to manage the certificates remotely. Cloud storage is also perfect for automating major cloud management activities. 

Centralize cloud storage to avoid major risks and unauthorized use and access. This makes managing all the certificates and related automation easier from one platform. 

On-premise storage systems are very vulnerable to attacks. Anyone who gains access to the company systems can easily access the storage folders and databases. Therefore, for a hybrid management system, ensure you enforce the best security measures to secure all the certificates.

Cloud management is perfect due to cloud security strategies and firewalls. Plus, you do not have to worry about incurring more costs. Plan a backup system in case of any major disruption or the certificate storage database is compromised. 

4. Enforce Constant Monitoring and Auditing

Certificate management is integral to the company's security strategy; hence, you must ensure everything works perfectly. Monitor the internal security measures to ensure everything is efficient and can withstand threats. 

Next, you must monitor the automation system and the management process to ensure efficiency. If there are any issues, you should upgrade them to make the automation smoother and more effective. For such needs, you need to outsource experts to help you audit the lifecycle agents to ensure the system is effective and there are no loopholes.

The audit and monitoring process should focus on lifecycle management. Monitor the logs to track major activities like issuance, renewals, and revocation. You can sample major certificate classifications to ensure a smoother process and management. 

5. Enforce Certificate Lifecycle Management Policies

Employees must abide by the certificate management roles. Therefore, you need clear guidelines and policies. Begin by formulating access, permission, and security guidelines to deter unauthorized access and requests. 

Also, create policies and guidelines for other parties, such as contractors and business partners. You can create these policies by relying on government and regulatory policies, especially those focused on data privacy and security.  

To avoid errors, ensure you train employees on these best practices. Also, create awareness about security threats like malware and phishing that could compromise the certificates. 

Conclusion 

Effective certificate management best practices are core to organization security and must be handled seriously. 

To reduce security risks, enforce proper policies and cloud storage protocols. Next, work with experts and automate key certificate management activities to ensure efficiency. Finally, regularly audit the entire system to ensure it operates optimally.