One of the essential security infrastructures for any organization is the public key infrastructure, which is ideal for enhancing cybersecurity preparedness and preventing different types of attacks. Due to its critical role in the organization, there is a need to constantly upgrade PKI to meet the latest security standards and protocols.
It is essential for streamlining data and communication encryption protocols to prevent attacks like eavesdropping, network tapping, etc. One of these protocols includes upgrading and moving from on-premises PKI to cloud PKI as a service (PKIaaS).
The move to PKIaaS is essential for constantly evolving organizations to meet all the security needs associated with organizational growth and expansion. PKIaaS is essential for organization flexibility, demand-driven cloud capabilities, and needs. Unlike previous versions, the upgraded services are less costly and can serve more purposes and demands than anticipated.
If you plan to upgrade to cloud PKI, here are some benefits you should anticipate when outsourcing PKI management services.
1. Cost-effectiveness
Instead of paying for the whole package, all you have to do is pay for what you need based on your security framework and organizational systems' size. The pay-as-you-go model saves the company the stress of paying for everything at once, even those features you may never need.
The pay-for-what-you-need model is one of the best security strategies, as the team can constantly upgrade the system to meet organizational expansion.
For the on-premise PKI, you must pay significant up-front capital and subsequent costs like renewal and other services offered. The cloud system does not require you to invest in the PKI infrastructure. You can outsource the resources and experts to Managed PKI The experts will diagnose the organization to determine security needs and the relevant PKI features.
2. Users Friendliness and Ease of Implementation
With the on-premise PKI, you need extra security resources to achieve key functions like key generation and distribution. This may require expertise to help streamline and implement all the security infrastructure to share and safely use the keys. Instead of all the cost, you can opt for the cloud-based PKI services, which are easy to manage and distribute.
With cloud-based PKI, you only need a reliable PKIaaS expert to streamline key functions. With their help, you can quickly implement PKI activities and resources, and everything becomes operational immediately. Since third parties do most activities, it saves the internal teams the burden of learning how to implement and manage PKI infrastructure.
3. Flexibility and Demand-Based Security Infrastructure
Cloud-based PKI is flexible; you can install or outsource only what you need for organizational needs. Instead of the traditional PKI, which forces organizations to adopt the whole package, PKIaaS is scalable and can be downsized based on organizational needs. As the organization's needs expand due to growth and globalization, you can scale its application to cover all the security needs.
As a demand-based security strategy, smaller organizations can now enforce the best security measures for all operations. When scaling it, you do not need an expert; the automated system does everything on you do. It is a perfect resource to encourage organizational growth with a guaranteed security framework.
4. Expert Security Help
Whenever you outsource PKIaaS, you get all the experts to help with key security functions and activities. With their help, you can address all the security concerns without relying on or straining your in-house team. Despite outsourcing the services, the in-house team can still completely oversee the PKI services and activities.
The experts are mainly involved with providing the resources you need and can step in occasionally when you need expert guidance. A consultant will always be assigned to assist you whenever you need help. They can also train your team to avoid reliance on outsourced labor, hence faster problem-solving.
5. Enhanced Security
Most organizations rely on various security strategies like hardware security modules, hardware security, system access, etc., to manage security for cryptographic keys. One of the challenges with such security measures is ineffectiveness and lack of scalability.
With the cloud PKI, you can protect all the keys simultaneously, especially if you have an automated key management system integrated with PKIaaS. Cloud security is diverse and covers software, communication, and hardware security modules. PKIaaS is also not susceptible to physical security issues like power outages, which can easily grant hackers access to your system.
6. Effective Key Management Lifecycle
