Digital certificates play an important role in enterprise security, protecting everything from websites and applications to IoT devices and cloud workloads.
But large enterprises are now juggling thousands of certificates across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and managing them has never been more difficult. To make matters worse, the validity period of certificates is being shortened to 398 days and is expected to shrink even further in the coming years. At this rate, spreadsheets and manual reminders are no longer a realistic option.
The challenges go beyond just compliance. For IT and security teams, the question is no longer whether to automate, but rather how quickly they can move to remain secure, resilient and compliant at scale.
Why manual certificate management no longer works
The manual approach to certificate management no longer works well in the fast-paced and complex IT world. Many organizations still manage their certificates manually, a method that will soon become unmanageable due to the rapid development of digital ecosystems.
Without centralized visibility, teams lack a clear picture of where certificates are deployed, who owns them, and when they expire. This may not be comprehensible in a dynamic environment where the lifespan of each certificate may be two or three hours in practice.
Even the most disciplined teams may overlook certificates. A missed renewal can result in unplanned service outages, application outages, or even user interruptions. In some situations, expired certificates have resulted in breaches or compliance violations due to faulty encryption or failed authentication. And as more companies expand into the cloud, DevOps, and IoT, this problem only grows.
The growing complexity of modern IT
Modern IT is no longer defined by a single data center. Companies now operate certificates in:
- Multi-cloud deployments such as AWS, Azure, GCP
- DevOps pipelines implementing CI/CD certificates into their workflows.
- IoT ecosystems with thousands of connected devices
- Hybrid IT environments that span legacy systems and the edge
This makes it nearly impossible to have complete visibility and control over manual processes.
The risks of manual certificate management
Here are some of the biggest security and business risks associated with manual certificate management:
Wasted IT resources
Manually managing certificates and renewals requires significant time and human resources that could otherwise be spent creating strategic security initiatives.
Downtime and failures
Missed certificate renewals can result in outages that can impact customer transactions, employee productivity, or integrations. This can negatively impact your brand name.
Compliance challenges
Expired or misconfigured certificates can lead to compliance violations under frameworks such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR. These violations can result in fines and reputational damage.
Vulnerabilities
Attackers are always looking for expired or mismanaged certificates to manipulate communications, introduce malware, or impersonate trusted services. Manual management can leave too many opportunities for exploitation.
These risks make it clear that manual management cannot keep up and automation is what everyone should adopt.
Why automation is the only scalable answer
Automated certificate management is the most effective solution to eliminate risks and achieve an end-to-end solution that discovers, issues, renews and revokes the digital certificate at scale.
Automation can be achieved through various methods such as agent-based or agentless discovery tools. These tools constantly scan the infrastructure to identify every certificate in cloud environments, containers, load balancers and legacy systems. Issuing and renewing is typically done using REST APIs, SCEP, or ACME SSL to dynamically request and install certificates. There are also numerous solutions that can work with CI/CD pipelines, configuration management tools, and secrets managers to enable DevOps workflows.
A 2021 DigiCert survey confirmed that companies operate more than 50,000 certificates and more than two-thirds report that their systems have gone offline due to unexpected operations. Automation not only eliminates these risks, but also provides assurance that internal and external policy requirements are met.
With automation embedded in the certificate ecosystem, organizations can securely achieve scalability, reduce operational overhead, and maintain visibility and control over their digital trust infrastructure.
Key benefits of certificate automation
Automated certificate lifecycles help save time and money. Below are some benefits that explain why every business should enable automation.
Automated detection
Automation scans the entire IT environment across cloud and on-premises infrastructures and IoT devices to identify all existing certificates, including those that may have been deployed without central management. This helps detect unknown or fraudulent certificates that may come from shadow IT, third-party providers, or remote teams.
With increased visibility into all certificates used across the organization, security and IT teams can more effectively assess risks and manage the footprint of their public key infrastructure.
Centralized administration
Once all certificates have been recognized, they can be incorporated into a central certificate management system through automation. IT teams and security teams can manage all certificates from a single dashboard to monitor certificate health, track expiration dates, and enable consistent security policies.
It also helps with governance and compliance by generating audit reports to ensure regulatory compliance in hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Automated lifecycles
Certificate lifecycles, including issuance, renewal, installation and revocation, are fully automated. Expiring certificates are renewed before disruptions occur, and new certificates can be provisioned and provisioned immediately. This can be particularly helpful for SSL certificates, as industry trends continue to shorten the lifespan of certificates.
This reduces the risk of unwanted operations and security errors and frees IT and security teams from time-consuming, repetitive tasks.
Impact on business
Automated certificate management provides clear operational and strategic added value to the company by providing:
- Increased security by eliminating outdated or misconfigured certificates.
- Reduced costs through fewer failures and human intervention.
- Increased uptime and reliability of customer-facing services and internal systems.
How to choose the right automation solution
When considering automation platforms, everyone needs to focus on:
- Scalability between multi-cloud and hybrid platforms.
- Protocol support, such as ACME, API and DevOps toolchain integrations.
- Compliance readiness with integrated reporting and auditing capabilities.
- Proactive monitoring that provides notifications about expired or misconfigured certificates.
Diploma
Digital trust has become a foundation of modern businesses and can no longer be maintained at scale with manual certificate management processes. As certificate lifespans become shorter and IT environments become more complex, the potential risks associated with outages, compliance violations, and security vulnerabilities will continue to increase.
Automated certificate management can help build scalable digital trust while ensuring all applications, devices and services grow securely, minimizing operational burden and ensuring constant visibility and control. Companies that rely on automated certificate management today not only stay ahead of compliance requirements, but can also develop resilience to changes in the digital landscape.
