Automation is a powerful tool for optimizing processes, reducing manual tasks, and enhancing efficiency within an organization. It often assists in utilizing valuable time and resources more effectively, enabling IT teams to approach their work more strategically and creatively. However, concerns about losing control of the process may linger among IT professionals, leading to potential security issues.

Why IT Teams Hesitate to Embrace Certification Automation These concerns are no different when it comes to certification automation. Digital certificates are fundamental building blocks of cybersecurity infrastructure, and their usage has significantly increased over the past decade. To enhance security, certification validity has been reduced in the last ten years, with suggestions to further shorten these periods. This intensifies the pressure on already stretched IT teams. Despite being an apparent solution, why are IT teams slow to adopt digital certificate automation?

Barriers to Automating Certificates We asked IT professionals, and here is a summary of the results:

• 38% of participants believe that compliance and technical limitations are the primary factors preventing them from automating their certificates. They think there is no ready-made certificate automation solution addressing issues like the lack of automatic renewal support in certain systems or environments (such as Windows, IIS, Plesk). Additionally, concerns arise about the compatibility of some systems with standard automated solutions.
• 25% identified cost and resource allocation as potential barriers. They contemplate whether creating a custom solution is necessary and, if so, whether continuing with manual maintenance is more cost-effective. There are also concerns about the resources required to sustain an automated solution.
• 20% admit to lacking knowledge or expertise in selecting an automated solution for themselves and their teams.

Survey results clearly show that many IT professionals either lack knowledge or do not prioritize certification automation. After all, certificates have been part of our IT infrastructure for a long time, and despite being cumbersome, they get the job done.

So, why fix something that isn’t broken? Unfortunately, if Google’s 90-day decision takes effect, the need to renew/replace SSL/TSL certificates will quadruple. Without a solid plan to handle this accelerated certificate lifecycle management, IT professionals may find themselves in a precarious situation. Considering the cost of certificate downtime, this poses a risky situation for both IT professionals and security teams.

The Risk of Manual Certificate Management The cost of not automating the certificate lifecycle can be substantial. Manual certificate management processes are not only time-consuming but also prone to errors, leading to security breaches, compliance issues, and operational disruptions. A recent study by AppViewX revealed that more than half of data breaches stem from certificate-related issues.

It is evident that without automation, some organizations struggle to keep track of certificate expiration dates, leading to potential disruptions or security vulnerabilities when certificates expire unnoticed.