Where is your org on its journey to enterprise PKI?
After all, PKI has evolved significantly from its early days, fueled by technological advancements and the increasing need to defend against emerging cyber threats.
Unfortunately, many still oversimplify the process, thinking they can just set up Microsoft CA or install OpenSSL and call it done. While this may work temporarily, it’s a short-term fix. Eventually, without a robust enterprise PKI solution, they’ll be left juggling free tools and ad-hoc methods that only create more complexity.
PKI is not just software; it’s a dynamic, essential infrastructure that requires strategy, robust processes, well-defined policies, the right tools, and seasoned professionals to manage it effectively.
The true value of PKI is unlocked when you move away from chaos and centralize its management. However, to truly optimize and future-proof your setup, automation and proactive monitoring are key.
Achieving peak enterprise PKI is a journey that evolves with your business. As your organization grows, the level of PKI maturity required will change. Here’s how we break it down into five stages:
Level 0- Ad-hoc: the startup phase, where everything is a bit all over the place.
Level 1- Limited management: for businesses scaling operations and trying to keep up.
Level 2- Foundational: when companies start optimizing and solidifying processes.
Level 3- Transformative: for established enterprises taking PKI to the next level.
Level 4- Resilient: industry leaders with bulletproof PKI systems.
Here’s a breakdown of each PKI maturity level, their pros and cons, and how to level up no matter where you are on your PKI journey.
Level 0 – Ad-Hoc: Doing PKI without PKI
The first tell-tale sign that you’re at this maturity level is that your IT team sees PKI as a necessary evil instead of a core security strategy. This is usually because they don’t fully understand how it works, yet it still needs to be implemented across the organization. As a result, tech teams struggle with tools, infrastructure, and policies that are vital to PKI’s success.
At this stage, every department ends up handling PKI their own way – from setting up individual CAs to combining open-source tools with certificates purchased from SSL/TLS vendors. With no clear ownership or standardization, PKI may seem deceptively simple.
Consequence
Businesses at this maturity level often deal with weak policies, outdated algorithms, and insecure key sizes. Certificate outages, audit failures, and human error are frequent occurrences, with staff getting burned out from handling repetitive tasks. In the worst-case scenario, critical data could be left on a flash drive or local disk, creating major security vulnerabilities.
How to move past this level
The first step is to establish clear ownership of your internal PKI. If you don’t have a dedicated team, consider hiring one – whether in-house or third party. Because you’re still in the startup phase, you can merge your PKI personnel with the Active Directory and infrastructure teams.
Next, start cleaning up the fragmented PKI tools across the organization. Document how different IT teams are managing PKI and certificate requests. Invest time in creating a scalable enterprise PKI strategy that aligns with your business growth.
If you’re relying on open-source tools, make sure you have the support and capability to transition to an enterprise PKI solution when you’re ready. Remember: Cutting corners at earlier levels may require a full PKI rebuild when it becomes a critical asset to your organization.
Level 1 – Limited Management: Doing PKI with the Bare Minimum
At this maturity level, businesses recognize PKI as part of their enterprise security stack, but it’s still not considered critical infrastructure. They follow most industry standards and best practices, like using Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) to protect CA private keys and air-gapping root of trust.
The issue with these practices is that they are usually implemented by one or two people who aren’t PKI experts – often just holding the fort after inheriting the role from a predecessor while juggling other IT duties. Due to this, documenting and enforcing enterprise PKI policies becomes a real struggle. So, you end up with unmanaged and unknown CAs, which leaves the business exposed to unpredictable risks.
Consequences
Here, PKI isn’t properly resourced. Admins take shortcuts and make ad-hoc changes, causing their PKI to drift far from the organization’s needs. Also, PKI is often handled through inefficient, manual processes, which leads to shadow IT running wild.
Without centralized control or well-documented policies, common mistakes happen—like plugging the root CA into the network, even if it’s just for a few minutes, to patch a server or update the certificate revocation list. This severely compromises your PKI security.
How to move past this
First, figure out if you can build on your existing PKI or if a complete rebuild is necessary. Then, assess your current enterprise PKI solution. Look for vulnerabilities, re-evaluate business needs, and consider alternative solutions.
Next, invest in staff training and implement proper documentation, such as a formal certificate policy and certificate statement [CP/CPS]) to ensure certificates are managed securely and consistently across the organization. Don’t forget to establish visibility and observability—like network scanning and CA discovery – across all PKI solutions. Then, streamline and consolidate PKI tools, especially those scattered across different teams that are using point solutions.
Level 2 – Foundational: Doing PKI Post-Assessment/Doing PKI Post-Realization
At this maturity level, you’ve got dedicated ownership and a well-documented policy, but your PKI still lacks interoperability. Your business now sees PKI not just as part of the security stack but as critical infrastructure that supports vital internal IT and revenue-generating services. This reality often hits after a major incident, like an outage or breach, or when organizations realize their current approach just isn’t cutting it.
At this stage, you have a dedicated PKI team with solid knowledge and bandwidth. You’ve moved past “checkbox security” to a more policy-based approach. Thanks to this, you’re starting to see the perks of a well-maintained PKI: fewer outages, better compliance, and less operational headaches.
But here’s the catch: While the foundational security and policy elements are solid, operational efficiency still lags behind. PKI management and scaling infrastructure are still manual, which drags down efficiency and slows down other teams. You’ve got decent visibility into most use cases, but your PKI still struggles to sync or communicate effectively with other systems or tools.
Consequences
You might have some certificate discovery and monitoring tools, like SSL/TLS network scanning, but there are still blind spots creating security vulnerabilities.
Manual processes for requesting CAs and certificates are slowing down teams and aren’t scalable. Plus, relying on limited integrations and protocols means your PKI team can’t fully enable other business units. And don’t forget: Human errors and troubleshooting drain resources that should’ve been allocated to crucial areas like remediation.
How to move beyond this level
Start easing the administrative load by automating high-volume, low-complexity PKI processes, like certificate issuance, renewal, and revocation. Tools like Keyfactor Command can help automate certificate lifecycle management and go beyond basic network discovery.
Also, get key stakeholders actively involved in your PKI program. Build a working group that includes developers and IT admins to ensure alignment with business needs and boost security. Lastly, seek guidance from these teams on how PKI and CA tools should be used and when new instances can be deployed to make sure interoperability is always top of mind.
Level 3 – Transformative: Doing Enterprise PKI at Full Power
At this level, your organization has fully unlocked the power of PKI. It’s integrated across your infrastructure, with a clear vision and roadmap that ties directly into strategic initiatives, like zero-trust architecture, multi-cloud security, and workforce enablement.
Here PKI is centrally governed, but with enough flexibility to support new use cases quickly and efficiently. The policy control is centralized, while enforcement is decentralized. This means the core team sets the rules, but different business units can set up their own CA or PKI solutions, so teams can move fast without breaking the rules.
Your organization likely has PKI sub-teams, each handling different aspects of PKI operations. For example, one team might manage infrastructure and policy, another handles day-to-day operations, and yet another focuses on incident response. There’s also likely a cross-functional group providing thought leadership, best practices, and guidance to eliminate silos and meet business needs.
Reaching this level means you’ve automated most of your backend PKI infrastructure, including CA configuration and deployment, as well as certificate lifecycle management. This brings more uptime, increased efficiency, and flexibility, which enables seamless integration with cloud platforms, microservices, and CI/CD tools.
How to move to the next step
At this level, the benefits clearly outweigh the challenges, but don’t kick back just yet—security is always evolving. New threats will emerge, algorithms will change, and your organization will keep growing.
So, to stay ahead, build a flexible system that can quickly adapt to monumental changes and maintain trust. Look for ways to expand automation and integration into emerging areas like DevOps, IoT, and new use cases.
Extend your integration capabilities with your enterprise identity fabric to streamline processes and improve detection and response (think SIEM, EPP, ITSM, IGA, etc.). Develop and continuously test your disaster recovery and business continuity plans for scenarios like CA compromise and crypto library bugs. Finally, start preparing for the future with a strategic roadmap for post-quantum cryptography.
Level 4 – Resilient: Future-Proof PKI
Reaching Level 4 means your PKI is in great shape – transformative, efficient, and secure. But don’t get too comfortable. A single misstep, like a misconfiguration, could unravel everything and land you back at square one. Staying at this level requires resilience and a mindset focused on continuous improvement.
At this stage, your PKI setup includes a centralized management platform integrated across all environments. You have complete visibility into all PKI components, and your processes for monitoring, testing, detection, and response are well-established. These measures help streamline operations, cut down on human error, and make it faster and easier to identify and fix certificate issues. Compliance becomes less of a headache, and your organization minimizes risks like cryptographic vulnerabilities, software supply chain attacks, or challenges during mergers and acquisitions.
How to maintain this level
To stay at this level, test and update your disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) plans regularly to ensure resilience against unexpected events. Expand your PKI automation arsenal as new use cases arise. Enforce and review policies consistently to keep them relevant and secure. Carry out regular audits and monitoring to detect issues early and maintain a smooth system that aligns with your business processes.
It’s crucial to prepare for post-quantum cryptography. Start planning now by evaluating cryptographic assets, mapping out compatibility needs, and building a migration strategy. PKI at this level is about more than just maintaining. You must evolve to meet tomorrow’s challenges head-on.
Conclusion
PKI isn’t a “set it and forget it” software – it’s an evolving strategy that scales with your business. Whether you’re wrestling with shadow IT or eyeing quantum-safe cryptography, the journey matters as much as the destination.
So, where’s your organization on the PKI roadmap? Get a guided strategy to PKI resilience with Keyfactor.
