Page 20 – Encryption Consulting

Securing your Windows Environment with CodeSign Secure and AppLocker

Securing your environment is very crucial in the current security-driven world. Every enterprise needs to secure their infrastructure against the rising threat. AppLocker is a security feature in Windows that allows your organizations or your enterprises to control which executable files or applications can run on your systems.

It prevents potentially harmful applications from being run by users by providing your administrators with the ability to create rules regarding the software that is allowed to be executed. This will also help in preventing unauthorized access to the applications and enhance the overall security of an organization.

Encryption Consulting’s CodeSign Secure is a code signing solution that is designed to manage digital code signing certificates and streamline code signing operations. Our solution, CodeSign Secure, simplifies the process of securely signing software and applications to ensure their authenticity and integrity. It provides an efficient way to handle code signing operations across diverse environments so that only verified software is trusted and deployed.

By integrating our solution with AppLocker, you can significantly enhance the security and control of your applications. While AppLocker can ensure that only whitelisted applications can run, our solution ensures that these applications are signed with trusted code signing certificates. This combination provides a strong mechanism to ensure that only validated and authenticated applications can be executed, which protects systems from malware or unauthorized applications.

What is Encryption Consulting’s Code Signing Tool – CodeSign Secure?

Our solution is designed to manage, automate, and secure code signing processes within your organization. It controls code signing certificates and ensures that only authorized users can sign software. Our solution reduces the risk of human error by automating signing processes, which also ensures that the distributed software is both secure and compliant with industry standards.

Key Features relevant to AppLocker:

Centralized Certificate Management
Our solution allows your organization to centrally store and manage all code signing certificates with secure access controls. System Admins can assign specific permissions to users or teams to ensure that only authorized personnel can sign applications. This feature aligns with AppLocker’s functionality, as it helps ensure that only software that is signed by trusted certificates can run.
Automated Code Signing Processes
Our platform automates code signing processes and reduces manual interactions to the minimum, making the processes less prone to errors or vulnerabilities. Automated workflows ensure that the code is always signed correctly before being distributed, which provides seamless integration with AppLocker and ensures that your organization will distribute only validated and signed applications.
Compliance Monitoring and Reporting
Our platform includes built-in compliance features that track and report all code signing activities your organization performs. Detailed audit logs will help your organization meet regulatory requirements and internal policies. When used with AppLocker, this ensures that your organization only runs software that meets security and compliance standards.
Integration with CI/CD Pipelines
Our solution integrates with existing CI/CD Pipelines and automates the signing process during software development and deployment. This streamlines code signing in agile environments while maintaining high security. With AppLocker, it guarantees that all of your organization’s software running in production is signed, trusted, and verified without disturbing the development workflow.

Why Use CodeSign Secure with AppLocker?

Enhanced Security
Our solution, CodeSign Secure, offers centralized management of your organization’s code signing certificates and ensures only authorized personnel can access these certificates for signing. By securely storing and managing these certificates, we help your organization reduce the risk of misuse or accidental exposure. When paired with AppLocker, this creates an extra layer of security, as only signed software from your organization is allowed to run by enforcing necessary policies.
Streamlined Code Signing
Our solution automates the code signing process and minimizes the potential of human error to ensure consistent signing practices. This automation ensures that your developers and system administrators don’t have to manually handle the code signing certificates, which reduces delays and risks associated with manual processes. When integrated with AppLocker, this streamlined process guarantees that only signed and trusted applications are executed by your organization.
Improved Compliance
Our solution provides detailed reporting and monitoring features that track all code signing activities. These reports offer detailed insights to your auditors into which application or software was signed, by whom, and when. This will also help your organization meet regulatory compliance requirements like PCI DSS, HIPAA, or CAB Forum. By integrating this feature with AppLocker, your organization can not only prevent untrusted applications from running but also ensure that all running software meets internal and external compliance standards.

How does AppLocker use Code Signing for Application Control?

AppLocker uses code signing as a critical method for verifying the identity of software publishers and enforcing strict control over which applications can run on your organization’s systems. By leveraging digital signatures, AppLocker ensures that only trusted and signed software can be executed.

AppLocker Rule Types

AppLocker operates through different rule types to control various file formats and application types. Let’s take a look at these rule types:

Executable Rules
These rules control which executable files (.exe and .com) are allowed to run in your organization. Administrators can create rules based on the file’s publisher, path, or file hash to ensure that only trusted executable programs are run.
Windows Installer Rules
These rules manage which Windows Installer files (.msi and .msp) can be executed. This allows your organization to control the installation of software packages and limit these installations to trusted sources.
Script Rules
These rules govern the execution of script files such as PowerShell Scripts (.ps1), batch files (.bat), and JavaScript files (.js). This is essential in controlling the execution of potentially harmful scripts within your organization’s environment.
Packaged App Rules
These rules apply to Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps and packaged apps like AppX files. They control the execution of modern applications distributed via the Microsoft Store or other channels, ensuring only authorized applications can run.

Publisher Rules and Digital Certificates

AppLocker can use these rules to enforce application control based on digital signatures. When the software is signed using a code signing certificate, the digital signature is embedded in the file, which allows AppLocker to identify the publisher and ensure that the application is authentic and hasn’t been tampered with.

How Publisher Rules Work
These rules are based on the metadata from a file’s digital certificate, such as the publisher and product’s name, file version, and certificate issuer. When an administrator from your organization creates a rule, they can specify different levels of control.
Using Code Signing Certificates
AppLocker uses the digital signature to verify the identity of the software publisher before allowing the application to be run in your organization’s environment. This process works as follows:
- The application is signed with a code signing certificate issued by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA) to your organization.
- AppLocker then checks this certificate to confirm that it was issued by a trusted CA and whether it matches the application or not.
- If the certificate is valid and meets the defined publisher rule, the application can run.

Implementing Code Signing using CodeSign Secure for AppLocker

Now, let’s discuss how you and your organization can use CodeSign Secure along with AppLocker to secure your development and deployment workflows.

Setup CodeSign Secure

Visit our website and sign up for a CodeSign Secure account if you haven’t already done so.
Complete the registration process and gain access to our solution.
Log in to the portal (based on the deployment you chose – On-Prem, SaaS, or Hybrid).
Define user roles such as System Admin, Project Manager, Security Officer, Auditor, and Developer on our portal.
Set up access controls and permissions so that only authorized personnel can perform the code signing operations.
Integrate our solution with your existing CI/CD pipelines like Jenkins, GitLab, Azure DevOps, and so on to automate the code signing processes during the build and deployment stages.

Obtain Code Signing Certificates

Use our portal to generate a CSR by storing the private cryptographic key in a FIPS 140-2 Level 2 HSM for security.
Use that CSR to obtain a code signing certificate from a trusted public CA.
Choose the type of certificate based on your security needs:
1. OV (Organization Validation): Standard level of validation for organizations.
2. EV (Extended Validation): Offers the highest level of validation for enhanced security.
Once you receive the issued certificate, store it in our portal by importing the certificate.
Now, ensure that this certificate is only accessible to those with proper roles and permissions.

Code Signing Process

Use our KSP (Encryption Consulting’s Key Storage Provider) to sign executables, scripts, or other files with the issued certificate.
Automate this code signing process through your CI/CD pipeline or use our custom-modified Utility Tool to sign individual or bulk files.
Once the software or application is signed, Windows should recognize the digital signature as coming from a trusted publisher.
Test the signed files on your Windows systems to verify the signature and ensure that the applications meet security policies.

Configure AppLocker to Use Publisher Rules

For single machines, you have to use secpol.msc (Local Security Policy) to access AppLocker settings. But for domain-wide policies, you have to use gpmc.msc (Group Policy Management Console) to manage AppLocker policies.
You have to go to Application Control Policies > AppLocker, and you have to select the rule type like – Executable Rules.
Now, you need to select Create New Rule and choose Publisher as the condition.
After that, browse to a previously signed executable file to extract the publisher information from the certificate you used for singing.
Now, the administrators in your organization have to define the scope of the rule, such as what versions of the product are to be released.
Then, you have to apply these rules to relevant user groups.
Remember to configure your AppLocker in audit mode to monitor the logs.

Deploy and Enforce AppLocker Rules

After you have verified the rules in Audit mode, switch your AppLocker to Enforce Mode. In this mode, only the trusted certificate will be allowed to execute to maintain your organization’s security.
You should regularly review the AppLocker Logs to detect any attempts to run unauthorized software.

Best Practices for Using CodeSign Secure with AppLocker

Follow these few best practices to keep your organization secure and authenticate applications using our solution – CodeSign Secure integrated with AppLocker. These are:

Regularly Update Certificates
You should ensure that your code signing certificates are renewed before they expire to avoid any kind of interruptions in software trust and prevent the execution of unsigned or untrusted code. You should set up automated alerts for certificate renewal and plan for a smooth transition between old and new certificates.
Monitor AppLocker Logs
Your developers should regularly review AppLocker logs using Event Viewer to monitor application execution and detect potential security incidents. These logs will also help you track rule violations or policy misconfigurations, ensuring that only trusted software is executed across your organization’s environment.
Automate When Possible
Your developers should leverage automation tools to integrate our CodeSign Secure with CI/CD pipelines and deployment processes. This ensures that code signing is consistently applied during software builds and releases and reduces the chances of manual errors.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Let’s discuss a few of the common issues we can face during the use of AppLocker. These are as follows:

Certificate Recognition Issue
1. AppLocker Doesn’t recognize CodeSign Secure issued certificates:
  1. Missing Intermediate Certificates: If AppLocker fails to recognize our CodeSign Secure issued self-signed certificates, this may be due to missing intermediate certificates in the certificate chain. To resolve this, you need to follow these steps:
    - You must download and install the missing intermediate certificates from our CodeSign Secure portal.
    - You must check whether the certificate chain is present in the Windows Certificate Store or not and whether they are properly linked.
  2. Expired Certificates: If the certificates have expired, AppLocker will block the associated software from your organization. To fix this:
    - You must renew the certificate before it expires.
    - You need to re-sign the affected software using the new certificate and update AppLocker rules as necessary to reflect this new certificate’s information.
  3. Certificate Store Configuration: Your developers need to make sure that the certificate is installed in the correct store for code signing.
Certificate revocation Issue
1. Problems Accessing Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) or OCSP:
  1. Network Restrictions: Your system’s firewalls or network settings may block access to CRL distribution points or OCSP responders, which will prevent AppLocker from verifying the certificate’s revocation status. To solve this problem, you need to follow these resolutions:
    - You must verify that your firewall and network allow outbound traffic to the URLs specified in the CRL Distribution Points or OCSP locations.
    - If your automatic CRL updates fail, you need to manually download the latest CRLs from the CA’s website and install them.
    - If your organization prefers isolated and high-security environments, then you need to set up internal CRL Distribution points or OCSP responders.
Error Codes and Resolution
1. Invalid OID (Object Identifier): This error occurs when the code signing certificate’s OID doesn’t match the expected OID for the required application. To resolve this issue, you need to follow these steps:
  1. You need to check the certificate’s Enhanced Key Usage (EKU) settings to confirm that it has the correct OID for code signing.
  2. Your developers must ensure that the certificate is specifically issued for code signing purposes.
2. Signature Validation Failures: Windows or AppLocker may fail to recognize the digital signature for several reasons:
  1. You need to ensure that the software hasn’t been tampered with since signing, as any changes would invalidate the signature.
  2. You must verify the certificate’s revocation status by ensuring that your system has access to CRLs or OCSP.
  3. You need to confirm that the correct signing procedure was followed, along with the appropriate certificate and process.
3. Common Error Codes:
  1. HRESULT: 0x800710D8: This error signifies an issue with your certificate chain or the end-entity certificate is untrusted. You must verify the certificate chain and reinstall the root or intermediate certificates if necessary.
  2. 0x8009000F (Key not valid for use in a specific state): You need to check whether the private key associated with the certificate is accessible and correctly configured or not. You must reimport the certificate if required.
  3. 0x800B0109 (The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is not trusted): You need to install the root and intermediate certificates from the certificate authority and confirm the certificate trust settings.

Conclusion

Using CodeSign Secure with AppLocker offers several significant advantages, such as enhanced security, compliance, and streamlined management. We encourage you to explore the benefits of integrating our solution with AppLocker to secure your applications and IT infrastructure. By adopting this solution, you can enhance your application control, reduce security risks, and ensure only trusted software runs within your environment.

To start securing your software today and take advantage of our solution’s robust code signing features, visit our website to learn more about CodeSign Secure. Discover how you can integrate this solution with AppLocker to achieve a higher level of security and compliance in your organization.

How NIST’s New PQC Algorithms Impact You

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has officially released the first three post-quantum cryptographic algorithms. The three algorithms are ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA. Earlier, these algorithms were known as CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, and SPHINCS+. There is also a signature algorithm FN-DSA proposed to be issued as a draft standard at the end of the year, which was earlier known as Falcon.

We have recently received a lot of queries, including can an organization start implementing these PQC-safe algorithms? Are these the finalized algorithms? Are these the ultimate cryptographic algorithms that will secure our systems from a quantum attack?

The finalization of these algorithms means that organizations can now start implementing PQC-safe algorithms into their Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to help ensure that systems that rely on secure digital identities and the exchange of encrypted data are safe from being broken by quantum computers.

Many organizations have already started developing strategies and roadmaps to migrate to PQC algorithms, and these PQC algorithm releases effectively create a starting point toward PQC readiness. But the truth is that organizations that are only just starting to think about migrating to the new standards are getting a late start in the race to secure the infrastructure that underpins their cryptographic assets.

Now, let’s talk a little more about the PQC Algorithms:

1. ML-KEM: FIPS 203 (Module-Lattice-based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism Standard)

ML-KEM provides a Key-Encapsulation Mechanism for sharing symmetric keys for general encryption. FIPS 203 states that it establishes a shared secret key (Symmetric key) between two users who communicate over a public network.

For more information, read In-Depth Overview of FIPS 203

2. ML-DSA: FIPS 204 (Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Standard)

ML-DSA is used to secure digital signatures. This standard outline specific details of algorithms used to generate and verify digital signatures, and “ML-DSA is considered secure, even against adversaries in possession of a large-scale quantum computer.”

The digital signature and the signed data are provided to the intended verifier. The verifying entity verifies the signature using the claimed signatory’s public key. Similar methods may be used to generate and verify signatures for stored and transmitted data.

For more information, read Understanding FIPS 204

3. SLH-DSA: FIPS 205  (Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Standard)

A stateless hash-based digital signature algorithm that is also used for data authentication and verification is described in FIPS 205.

For more information, read In-Depth Analysis of FIPS 205

Type	FIPS Name	Current Specification Name	Initial Specification Name
KEM	FIPS-203	ML-KEM	CRYSTALS-Kyber
Signature	FIPS-204	SLH-DSA	CRYSTALS-Dilithium
Signature	FIPS-205	SLH-DSA	Sphincs+
Signature	FIPS-206	FN-DSA	FALCON

Diagram 1. PQC algorithms

It’s Time to prepare for a Post Quantum World

Those who haven’t started preparing for PQC readiness must understand the recommended next steps for PQC readiness.

Strategy for Migration to PQC:

The migration strategy depends on many factors, such as compliance requirements, business requirements, the need to be aligned with industry best practices, and more. However, let’s talk about the key points that will help an organization for a successful migration to PQC

Build a comprehensive and ongoing cryptographic inventory or a Cryptographic Bill of Materials (CBOM) and scope the impact of PQC on existing identified systems.
Examine the organization’s application ecosystem and identify the legacy systems that cannot support PQC algorithms.
Replace or upgrade the identified legacy systems that cannot support PQC algorithms.
Prioritize crown jewels systems and data for PQC migration.
Select appropriate PQC algorithms for your environment’s needs.
Set up a lab environment to test the PQC algorithms.
Deploy and monitor
The best strategy to direct these phases with minimal trouble and maximum security can be achieved by becoming crypto-agile.

Know the PQC Timeline to Date:

How can Encryption consulting help you prepare for a PQC world?

1. Quantum Threat Assessment

Our detailed Quantum Threat Assessment service utilizes advanced cryptographic discovery to analyze and secure your cryptographic infrastructure.

Evaluate the state of the cryptographic environment as it is, identify any gaps in the current standards and controls that are in place for cryptography (such as key lifecycle management and encryption methods), and do a thorough analysis of any possible threats to the cryptographic ecosystem.
We assess the effectiveness of existing governance protocols and frameworks and provide recommendations for optimizing operational processes related to cryptographic practices.
Identify and prioritize the crypto assets and data based on their sensitivity and criticality for the PQC migration.

2. Quantum Readiness Strategy and Roadmap

Identify PQC use cases that can be implemented within the organization’s network to protect sensitive information
Define and develop a strategy and implementation plan for PQC process and technology challenges.

3. Build Crypto-Agility

We assist in determining the cryptographic challenges, compromises, and threats for your organizations.
We support seamless migration to new CAs, certificates, and PQC algorithms.
We support automating certificates and key lifecycle management for stronger security and continuous compliance.

4. Compliance Enhancement

Ensure compliance enhancement with industry standards.
We help you stay updated with the new PQC algorithms and their usage and utilization for your organization.

5. Understanding Challenges and Providing Transition Support

Assist in acknowledging and overcoming challenges during the transition to post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, ensuring a smooth and secure migration.

6. Vendor Evaluation & POC (Proof of Concept)

Provide an overview of solution capabilities and vendor/product mapping to the identified use cases.
Document the test/ evaluation scenarios.

Conclusion

The Post-Quantum Cryptographic Advisory Services offered by Encryption Consulting LLC help clients overcome the cybersecurity obstacles brought on by quantum computing. We offer perspectives on possible quantum hazards, steer the shift towards quantum cyber-preparedness, and align to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) guidelines suggested by top organizations such as NIST. We assist companies in evaluating and updating their cryptographic infrastructure, so they are ready for the quantum age through proactive cryptographic discovery and strategic planning.

Everything You Need To Know About PKI-as-a-Service (PKIaaS)

PKI-as-a-service involves deploying and managing an organization’s Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) on a cloud-based platform. This service handles the entire PKI lifecycle, from setting up a Certificate Authority (CA) to issuing, managing, and revoking end-entity certificates for user’s devices or domains.

Features such as better flexibility, automated procedures, and lower overhead make it simple for your organization to establish strong authentication, data encryption, and integrity control across its digital assets and to secure sensitive data.

Let’s understand the importance of PKI-as-a-Service, considering a scenario where your organization either a small-scale or large-scale is handling the sensitive data like PII (Personal Identifiable Information, Personal Health Information), PCI (Personal Card Information), to make sure the data is protected, the organization must ensure the following:

The data-in-transit remains unaltered across the network of organization and creating a secure connection to protect the user’s identity
An online web server certificate (for example, SSL/TLS certificate) is required as the organization needs to authenticate devices, users, and internal resources that are access within this application for security reasons.
Valid and secure server certificates are a critical compliance control to meet regulatory requirements (eg., NIST, FIPS) such as PCI-DSS. (For more information on the importance of digital certificates, refer this blog)
Managing numerous digital certificates manually is both time consuming and human errors prone, which leads to the necessity of automatic certificate issuance, renewal, and revocation processes.

PKI-as-a-Service not only reduces the cost and errors but addresses all the above challenges by automating the certificate lifecycle process from issuing to enrolling a certificate. Before further diving into PKI-as-a-Service, let’s understand the concept of PKI and how it is related to PKI-as-a-Service.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

PKI issues the digital certificate (e.g., SSL/ TLS) to authenticate the data communication using asymmetric encryption, that is, by generating X.509 certificates using public and private encryption keys. These encryption keys facilitate end-to-end encryption.

The various components of PKI are:

Public and Private keys
As mentioned above, public and private keys are used to carry out asymmetric encryption. When a client needs to receive sensitive information, they share their public key with the sender to encrypt the data. This process ensures that only the intended recipient can decrypt and access the information using their corresponding private key.
Digital certificates
The private key signs the digital certificates. These certificates not only serve as the identity of the organization but also confirm them as the rightful owner of the associated public key.
Certificate Authority
The Certification Authority signs the digital certificate using its private key and issues the certificate. These are the centers of trust. There are two types of CA- Root CA and Issuing CA.
1. Root CA
  - The top-level certificate authority establishes the foundation of trust in the PKI hierarchy.
  - Issues and signs certificates for intermediate CAs.
  - Typically maintained in a highly secure, offline environment to prevent unauthorized access and ensure long-term trust.
2. Issuing CA
  - Processes and signs end-entity certificate (e.g., SSL/TLS) requests from the MS CA Proxy or other sources.
  - Manages Certificate Lifecycle- Issues, renews, and revokes certificates as needed for various applications.
  - Operates online and is responsible for day-to-day certificate management activities, ensuring the ongoing validity and security of issued certificates.
Registration Authority
The Registration Authority serves as a bridge between users and the Certification Authority (CA). It first verifies the identity of those requesting digital certificates and then forwards the validated requests to the CA for issuance.

Choosing what is right for you- PKI or PKIaaS?

The above-mentioned components utilized to build a PKI, which is equally important for certificates issued by PKI-as-a-Service as it is for On-Prem PKI.

So, what makes PKIaaS more beneficial than traditional PKI solutions?

Factor	PKI-as-a-Service	Traditional PKI
Deployment	The setup is quick and managed, with minimal infrastructure by the service provider required from your organization’s perspective.	Significant time is required with expertise and resources to deploy, involving hardware, software, and network configuration.
Management	Reduces operational overhead as the digital certificate issuance, renewal, and revocation will be handled by the service provider.	Operations are managed in-house, requiring dedicated personnel for ongoing digital certificate tasks and maintenance.
Scalability	Utilizing the cloud infrastructure, the service automatically adjusts to your certificate requirements as your organization grows or fluctuates.	Scaling up requires additional hardware, software licenses, and configuration changes, which can be time-consuming.
Cost	By eliminating the cost of hardware purchases, software installations, and ongoing maintenance, significant operational costs are reduced. (Encryption Consulting provides a subscription model, minimizing the upfront cost)	Traditional PKI requires high investment and resources for hardware purchases, software installation, and ongoing management costs.

PKI-as-a-Service is a preferred choice for organizations prioritizing ease of use, cost savings, and faster deployment.

Workflow of PKI-as-a-Service

Starting from the process of initiating the certificate signing request for the point of central coordination and ending with the issuance of the digital certificate, a series of PKIaaS components interact in the below-mentioned steps:

Certificate requesters start up
Any organization (client) could request digital certificates (for e.g., SSL/TLS) using protocols such as ACME, SCEP, or Intune. The process begins by sending the certificate request to the Certificate Enrollment Gateway (CEG). The CEG, using its client certificate builds a secure connection with Certificate Authority Gateway (CAGW) server certificate.
Processing the request
The Certificate Authority Gateway (CAGW) which is hosted on a containerized system, will receive certificate requests and, in turn, forward them to one or more appropriate Managed CAs via a secure intermediatory or proxy server, ensuring all certificates are stored and managed.
Connection to the Issuing CA
The intermediatory or proxy server acts as a bridge between the Certificate Authority Gateway (CAGW) and the designated Issuing CA within the PKI environment. The connection is secured via client and server certificate (hosted on online Issuing CA).
Certificate Issuance
Issuing CA issues the End-Entity Certificate as per the certificate request received using Active Directory Certificate Service (ADCS).
Certificate delivery
After issuing the certificate, it is returned to CAGW through MS CA Proxy. Finally, CAGW sends this certificate, which is now signed, to CEG, which will deliver it back to the client who requested it.

By doing so, the server and client certificate securely handle every step between request initiation until your certificates are delivered to the end-to-end PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) service.

Features of PKI-as-a-Service

PKI as a Service (PKIaaS) provides a comprehensive set of capabilities for managing digital certificates and public-private key pairs, hence strengthening security across the organization. The following are the key features of PKIaaS:

PKI infrastructure management
- Simplified and centralized configurations of manged PKI, allowing easy deployment of Certificate Authorities (CAs) customized according to the organization’s needs (for e.g., optional Root CA separation).
- Evaluates the complete lifecycle of Root and Issuing CAs, ensuring that industry best practices are followed (for example, utilizing FIPS 140-2 Level 3 HSM to secure the private keys of Certificate Authorities (CAs) with high availability).
Certificate Authority security
- Ensures that Root CA keys (public-private key pair) are created securely and transparently for the users.
- Automates certificate issuance and renewal by implementing auto-enrollment protocols, such as SCEP (Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol), EST (Enrollment over Secure Transport), and ACME (Automatic Certificate Management Environment) and REST APIs.
Policy and Compliance Management
- Defining and implementing certificate policies and practices, such as certificate profiles, validity periods, and key usage constraints, customized to meet your organization’s security requirements.
- Ensuring adherence to industry best practices regulatory requirements (e.g., NIST, FIPS, GDPS).
Integration and Automation
- Utilizing RESTful APIs to integrate PKI services with other applications and systems within your organization to facilitate certificate management and deployment.
- Scripts and tools to automate certificate issuance and management processes.

Use cases

Supported protocols
To automate the process of enrolling users and devices for digital certificates while ensuring that all security controls are properly applied across your organization. Let’s break down the supported protocols that ensures an automates the certificate enrollment and issuance process:
1. Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME)
  - This protocol automates communication between Certificate Authorities (CAs) and clients requesting to issue the server certificates for a domain.
  - The protocol validates the domain ownership for the certificate requests. It typically involves challenges like HTTP-01 (placing a file on the web server) or DNS-01 (creating a DNS record) to prove domain control.
  - ACME clients and servers communicate over HTTPS, ensuring the certificate management process is secure and protected from tampering.
  - By easy integration with CA systems the management of SSL/TLS certificates is simplified.
2. Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP)
  - SCEP automates the digital certificates enrollment process, reducing manual effort and easing the certificate management process for devices such as routers, switches, etc.
  - The protocol implements secure methods to certificate requests and issuance, such as using PKCS#10 (Public Key Cryptography Standards) for certificate requests.
  - SCEP offers authentication tools to assure valid certificate requests. It verifies the identity of the requesting device or user before issuing a certificate.
  - SCEP is designed to handle large-scale deployments efficiently, making it suitable for environments with numerous devices requiring certificates.
  - SCEP is a PKI communication protocol that allows administrators to automatically and securely issue certificates to mobile devices that implement the protocol.
3. WSTEP
  - A Windows enrollment client can connect to a Domain Controller through the Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service and request certificates from multiple Certification Authorities (CAs).
  - WSTEP digital certificates allows only authorized devices to access specified service or network resources, improving overall security.
  - Secure channels and encryption protect sensitive information exchanged during certificate enrollment process.
Microsoft Intune Integration
- Certificate Enrollment Gateway can receive SCEP requests with a CSR (certificate signing request) from Windows clients and send the CSR to Intune for validation. To control user access to enterprise resources and streamline app & device management across hundreds of mobile devices, desktops, and virtual endpoints.
- Effectively manage cryptographic policies/algorithms to conform with regulations and compliance.
- Faster invalidation of certificates with automatic revocation in Intune, leading to a better disaster recovery plan.
Endpoint Authentication (UEM/MDM)
- Verify that the certificates are issued with strong security settings, allowing you to keep a tab on certificate usage and validity.
- The protocol provides username and password authentication.
- Clients such as the Mobile Device Management (MDM) software must authenticate to Certificate Enrollment Gateway using valid login and password credentials.
- This setting contains child settings for defining username and password credentials that clients will use to authenticate to Certificate Enrollment Gateway for the MDM protocol.
- For the MDM protocol, user must define at least one username and password credential.
- Since only authorized personnel should be allowed to manage sensitive certificate functions, granular access control, and role-based permissions are important compliance (NIST, FIPS 140-2) criteria.
- Granular access control and role-based permissions are crucial for managing sensitive certificate functions adhering to NIST, FIPS compliance.
- After the assessment of both integrity checks and security patch levels, certificates can be issued.
S/MIME
- End-to-end encryption of email messages.
- Separation of the signing and encryption functionality, S/MIME certificates allowing both to be done at once non-repudiation.
- Key history management and automated backup save the day for uninterrupted storage of cryptographic keys.
- Works with multiple devices and operating systems like Windows, macOS, iOS & Android.
Managed PKI
- Secure setup for your root CA infrastructure that complies with ISO 27001 standards, safeguarding your cryptographic assets.
- Maintain full control over your private keys, ensuring complete oversight of your digital certificates and cryptographic operations.
- Private keys are stored in FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) to prevent unauthorized access or tampering.
- CRL (Certificate Revocation List) and OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) services to verify the validity and status of certificates, maintaining trust in your PKI ecosystem.

Why Encryption Consulting LLC?

Deploy PKI-as-a-Service in your environment.

Encryption Consulting offers a highly flexible, reliable, high-assurance PKIaaS solution with increased scalability and consistent support features, further enhancing the management and functionality of digital certificates across your organization. Here’s a quick look at the key features:

Customizable and Scalable Solutions
- Flexible Integration: We extend a customized framework according to the specific security requirements of your organization, with its broad range and extensive support for different Certification Authorities (CAs), enhancing adaptability.
- Scalability: Balance the growth of certificates and users without hampering performance.
Consistent Support Features
- High Assurance: We offer strong security features of PKIaaS, and ensure compliance with standards such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR. It helps control and manage certificate policies (mitigating risk and improving digital security).
- Support reinforcement: Receive necessary support in case of any day-to-day running concern, ensuring it maintains smoother operations.

Different deploying methods:

For ease of deployment in your organization’s environment, we provide the PKIaaS solution to be deployed on various platforms:

OnPrem PKI: Managed PKI to be deployed within your organization infrastructure, which means that PKI components such as root and issuing Certificate Authorities (CA) are hosted within an on-premises platform.
SaaS PKI: The PKI setup for certificate lifecycle management to be configured in your organization’s cloud-based platform, enhancing security and establishing digital identities for the users.
PKIaaS: Automated certificate lifecycle management and custom ManagedPKI to be hosted and managed by Encryption Consulting’s cloud environment with the flexibility of customizing the PKI based on your domain and security requirements.

Conclusion

PKIaaS is a new, high-performance version of the traditional PKI solution hosted in its data center. No matter how big or small your organization is, everyone deals with some sensitive data, such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI), which means PKIs are a must-have for secure communication. PKIaaS fulfills all these requirements by offering a cloud-based service that manages the entire life cycle of certificates and delivers security, compliance, and operational efficiency.

This secure yet user-friendly solution has been designed to optimize certificate management and increase your security capabilities while keeping costs at bay. PKIaaS has emerged as an ideal solution for businesses coping with digital security and compliance dynamics, offering advanced capabilities to store certificates securely while concurrently facilitating secure communications across all functional boundaries.

Understanding the Importance of HSMs in Achieving PCI DSS Compliance

Importance of HSMs in PCI Dss Compliance

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, generally called PCI DSS, is a security standard created to reduce fraudulent activities related to payment cards. These standards were designed to ensure that all the vendors with cardholder information maintain a secure environment and protect this data from cyber threats and vulnerabilities. As more organizations work towards making the card transaction a faster and more efficient process, it is creating a black box for the consumer who is simply using it but doesn’t know if the process is managed properly.

Also, as of March 31, 2024, the PCI DSS v3.2.1 has been retired, and organizations have until March 31, 2025, to become compliant with the latest v4.0 standards, which makes learning whether a vendor is complying with PCI standards or not a serious concern. Are they following the best practices in protecting your data? What should you do in situations of a data breach? How will the data be retained in case of a loss?

There are millions of possible scenarios where your knowledge of PCI DSS will help you navigate through such issues related to card payments. PCI DSS compliance will help you ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of cardholder data. It will help to establish trust with customers and avoid financial penalties as well. Along with the PCI DSS compliance, we will also focus on using HSMs in PCI DSS.

We will be covering the role of HSMs in maintaining these standards and protecting cardholders’ private information, its benefits, and how to implement an HSM in PCI DSS compliance. Read on to understand the process behind protecting your critical card information and how an organization can benefit by following the best practices and maintaining PCI DSS compliance.

What is PCI DSS?

PCI DSS is a set of globally recognized regulatory policies and procedures created to protect credit, debit, or other card transactions and prevent the misuse of cardholders’ information from any unauthorized breaches and attacks. Any business involved in card transactions must comply with the PCI DSS standards.

These security standards were created in 2004 by American Express, MasterCard, Discover Financial Services, and JCB International and are governed by the PCI SSC (Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council). The PCI DSS is not a legal mandate, but it is mostly included in the contracts of companies that deal with cardholder information.

These organizations are contractually bound to comply with PCI DSS standards to ensure they provide a secure environment for their customers. Non-compliance with PCI DSS standards can have several repercussions for your organization, such as data breaches, reputational damage, penalties, and interruptions in payment processing.

Now, you might wonder why these five major organizations standardized the card transaction industry and what made them consider the problem of cardholder data security. Let’s explore the key events and turning points in the history of PCI DSS compliance.

History of PCI DSS

It all started in the late 1990s when credit card frauds were increasing due to widely accepted e-commerce practices.

Cybersource reported that profits from online frauds had reached $1.5 billion. Mastercard and Visa reported losses of over $750M from online thefts between the years 1988 and 1999.
Visa became the first brand to create security standards for vendors processing online transactions in the early 2000s, called CISP (Cardholder Information Security Program).
Soon, other major organizations had their own individual compliance programs, but having multiple programs and policies made it confusing for the vendors to handle the user data properly. So, the top companies decided to join forces and launch PCI DSS v1.0 compliance on December 15, 2004.

Around the month of September 2006, the first update was made to the PCI DSS compliance.

The most crucial update was mandating all the custom applications to get their code professionally reviewed for security hotspots or get a web firewall installed for online applications.
Also, the five top companies decided to create an independent governing body, PCI SSC, that will maintain the compliance standard in the future.

PCI DSS v2.0 was released in October 2010. It was designed to provide a better understanding and flexibility of the PCI DSS compliance standards by merchants to implement them more easily.

Then, by November 2013, v3.0 was launched.

It was designed to focus on internal vulnerability assessment and update password requirement checks.
Additionally, it highlighted the importance of following the best practices of PCI DSS compliance to operate daily business data.

PCI DSS v4.0 compliance was released in March 2022, providing updates like multi-factor authentication, new e-commerce and phishing standards, and password requirements. Organizations and merchants have until March 2025 to comply with the latest PCI DSS requirements and standards.

PCI DSS requirements

The PCI SSC created 12 PCI DSS requirements, which can be categorized into six major categories. These requirements were designed for organizations to maintain a secure environment and protect cardholders’ privacy and transactions.

Secure Network and Systems
Card transactions must be processed within a secure environment using robust methods against cyber fraud while minimizing the inconvenience for cardholders and merchants. Secure Network category consists of two PCI DSS requirements, which are:
- You should have a strong firewall configuration that must be regularly updated.
- Your System passwords should be unique and not the default options provided by your vendor.
Secure Cardholder Data
Organizations handling cardholder data should have a secure storage location, as they’re also protecting sensitive user data, like Date of Birth, Contact information, email IDs, Social Security numbers, and more. This category consists of the following PCI DSS requirements:
- Your cardholder data must be securely stored.
- All your cardholder data transmitted over the public networks must be encrypted.
Vulnerability Management
Organizations that process card transactions and information must implement vigorous vulnerability assessments and risk management strategies to prevent online theft. They should keep their software updated and incorporate the latest security fixes. Vulnerability management consists of the following PCI DSS requirements:
- You should always have up-to-date anti-virus software.
- Your systems and applications must be securely developed and maintained.
Secure Network and Systems
Access to your private information should be regulated and restricted properly. Organizations must have unique identifiers for everyone accessing the information or using the system resources. They should have role-based access so that the personal cardholder information is known to only authorized people.

Access control also deals with the physical protection of data, such as document shredding, limited document duplication, and many other security measures. The access control category consists of three PCI DSS requirements, which are:
- Access to your personal data should be restricted to limited employees who have a genuine business need of that data.
- Everyone who is granted computer access to your data should have a unique identifier.
- Physical access to your data must be allowed only by authorized personnel.
Network Monitoring
Networks should be regularly tested for effectiveness and security hotspots. Scanning all the data, applications, memory, storage, and more, is a mandate for any network. Monitoring the network consists of the below PCI DSS requirements:
- All the access attempts to your card information must be recorded and monitored.
- Security systems and strategies must undergo a serious and regular evaluation.
Information Security Policy
All organizations that work with cardholders’ information must strictly adhere to detailed security policies and procedures. They should perform regular audits, and penalties must be enforced for non-compliant parties. PCI DSS requirement in this category is listed below:
- Information security policies must be in place and consistently upheld.

Now that we have a basic understanding of PCI DSS compliance, let’s learn about the Hardware Security Module (HSM), which will make these card transactions more secure.

Introduction to HSMs

By now, you might be aware that digital information needs to be protected from cyber-attacks. You need to implement the utmost security and protective strategies to save your sensitive information. Hardware Security Module, or HSM, is a physical computing device that protects and manages sensitive data, generally cryptographic information. It provides a tamper-resistant environment for performing various operations such as key generation, storage, cryptography, and more.

HSMs were designed to secure information like financial data, government secrets, and other highly important files. HSMs are not general-purpose computing devices. They are specifically designed to process and manage cryptographic keys. For instance, imagine you’re making an online purchase using your credit card.

When you provide your card details in the backend, the HSM encrypts your sensitive information by creating a unique encryption key for that transaction. Now, even if any cyber-criminal manages to steal your information without the correct decryption key stored securely in HSM, that information is useless.

HSM creates an isolated environment so only authorized personnel can access the data. They provide regular audit logs and help enterprises achieve compliance and requirements, which reduces the risk of a key being compromised.

Now that you have learned about an HSM and its purpose in the security world let’s understand its role in PCI DSS compliance standards.

The Role of HSMs in PCI DSS Compliance

PCI DSS compliance requires organizations to provide a protective environment for cardholder data. To increase security, we have covered the part where PCI DSS states that cardholder data must be encrypted before transmitting it over networks. Also, in the introduction to HSM, we learned that the main purpose of an HSM is to secure keys and perform cryptographic operations. Hence, there is no better way to achieve PCI DSS compliance than by using HSMs.

According to your requirements and needs, HSMs can be classified into two types: General-Purpose HSMs and Transaction and Payment-Purpose HSMs.

General-Purpose HSMs are suitable for non-specialized functions such as digital signatures, cryptography, and key management. For instance, you can use general-purpose HSMs for code or document signing, PKI, software licensing, and IoT security.

Transaction & Payment HSM are designed for the specific needs of the payment industry and help you perform operations such as PIN generation and management, card verification, and secure key sharing. Examples of such HSMs are ATM transactions, POS terminals, online payments, and mobile payments.

Integrating HSMs into your enterprise’s system and operations will increase your security protocols and help you maintain the privacy of your user’s card information. In the financial industry, HSMs are like security vaults, protecting crucial data and keeping it out of the wrong hands. They facilitate payment processing and cardholder authentication functions, such as PIN management and validation, 3-D Secure authentication, card data verification, and more.

Now, let’s consider a common online banking system to understand how the current processes, such as login authentication, fund transfers, and bill payments, will work with an integrated HSM. For instance, an HSM can generate more complex hashes during user authentication and create one-time passwords or authenticator app codes, or while performing payment, HSMs can generate digital signatures for that transaction and encrypt the message before storing it in the database.

Now that you have discovered the role of an HSM in a PCI DSS-compliant organization, let’s explore certain requirements for an HSM to comply with PCI DSS.

Integration and Requirements of HSM for PCI DSS Compliance

Your HSM must have specific features and capabilities to meet the PCI DSS standards and to follow the industry-set guidelines, as these build trust amongst your users. Integrating an HSM into your enterprise system requires careful planning, designing, and execution. We have classified these requirements into broader categories so you can understand them and make your HSMs PCI DSS compliant.

1. Physical Security Requirements

HSMs must incorporate physical security measures to ensure the utmost security and protection for sensitive payment card data.

Your HSM must have tamper-proof detection and response mechanisms so that your device can become inoperable immediately and automatically erase all the sensitive information stored on it in a way that it becomes infeasible to recover private information.
It must be designed to operate under various environmental conditions. For instance, any fluctuations in temperature or power supply should not compromise the device’s security or functionality.
All sensitive information and data must be kept isolated within a protected area of your HSM, which should be impervious to unauthorized modification or substitution.
HSMs must protect the cryptographic keys used for PCI-related functions with utmost security and strategies.
Extraction of any sensitive information, such as PINs, account data, or cryptographic keys, through analysis of power consumption, electromagnetic emissions, or timing variations should be prevented.

2. Policy and Procedures

A proper policy structure is the basis for safe and secure operations in your HSM. We will now understand the policy requirements that your HSM should have to become fully PCI-DSS compliant.

Your HSMs should have clear role-based access, each with specific authorized functions. They should also follow security access protocols to prevent any unauthorized alterations to the data.
HSM’s security policy should be accessible to all users, and its operation and management should be properly defined.
Its policy must include key management responsibilities, administrative procedures, device functionality, identification guidelines, and environmental requirements.

3. Logical Security Requirements

After understanding the physical aspects of security in a PCI DSS-compliant HSM, let’s explore the logical security standards for an HSM.

You must have a rigorous self-testing method to verify the integrity of your firmware and the overall health of your device.
HSM’s design should perfectly handle unexpected inputs, commands, or errors without compromising security. Sensitive information must not be disclosed under any circumstance.
Any firmware updates must undergo strict authorization and verification. The update process and procedures should use secure communication protocols to prevent unknown modifications.
It should utilize a high-quality random number generator to ensure the unpredictable nature of the cryptographic keys and other security-critical components.
HSM design should provide secure logging capabilities to support audit and compliance requirements.

4. Cryptographic Key Operations

Proper key generation, loading, and protection are necessary functions for an HSM when achieving PCI DSS compliance. These processes must be theft-proof to prevent any disclosure and compromise of the cryptographic keys.

Your HSM must ensure that the private or secret keys are never exposed in clear-text form during the key generation process.
If your HSM can generate symmetric or asymmetric keys for external use, i.e., not used by your HSM, then those keys should be securely deleted immediately after transfer.
It must maintain a strict separation between different security domains, preventing the movement of keys from higher-security to lower-security areas.
Once the keys are loaded into your HSM, any attempt to modify the device’s functionality without automatically erasing the keys must be infeasible.

Now that we have explored the various HSM requirements in a PCI DSS environment let’s learn about the consequences of non-compliance.

Consequences of Non-Compliance with PCI DSS Standards

Failing to adhere to the PCI DSS standards can lead to substantial fines, which enterprises will pay monthly until their operations and procedures become compliant again. Although PCI DSS is not a legal necessity, the industry standards set by major payment card companies mandate PCI DSS compliance. These fines depend on various factors, including the company’s size, the volume of processing transactions, and the contract between each card payment processor.

PCI non-compliance can incur penalties that banks and card companies may charge between $5000 and $10000 monthly (depending on volume and transactions). Though different payment operators have their own set of fines in case of non-compliance, there is a general range based on the period of PCI non-compliance and transaction volume.

Period of Non-Compliance	Expected PCI Fines Based on Transaction Volume
1-3 months	Low Volume: $5000/month High Volume: $10,000/month
4-6 months	Low Volume: $25,000/month High Volume: $50,000/month
7+ months	Low Volume: $50,000/month High Volume: $100,000/month

Non-compliance with PCI DSS regulations put consumers at risk of financial loss and identity theft. Attackers can exploit the vulnerabilities in a non-compliant setup and steal sensitive information like credit card numbers and personal data, causing fraudulent transactions and unauthorized access to personal accounts.

Now that we have discussed the fines caused by non-compliance with PCI DSS, we will now cover the damages caused to the business in case of not following the industry standards.

Loss of card transaction privileges
A survey conducted by Forbes Advisor in February 2023 revealed a clear preference for digital payments among American consumers: 54% using debit cards, 36% using credit cards, and 9% using cash. Card transactions are very popular among users. If your business becomes non-compliant with PCI DSS standards, the major card brands can take your rights to process card payments, which will lead to huge losses for consumers.
Increased probability of Breaches
Attackers usually target firms that deal with sensitive information. If those organizations do not follow proper standards, they can suffer huge consequences regarding legality, user trust, market disruption, and panic.
Reputational Loss
If your company handles a larger number of clients and their data, any data breach could damage your enterprise and leave a mark in the public’s mind regarding your security and protection.

For instance, one of the major data breaches was the Magecart attack on Warner Music Group (WMG) in late 2020. Magecart is a collection of hacker groups known for injecting malicious scripts into websites to steal payment card information during an online transaction. The compromised personal sensitive data included credit card numbers, CVV/CVC codes, and expiration dates.

The attack lasted for three months, causing a lot of reputational damage to the organization. WMG had to notify the affected customers and provide them with credit monitoring services. Hence, understanding the importance of PCI DSS compliance standards and monitoring them with a secure HSM is the need of the hour.

We will now understand how Encryption Consulting’s HSM services can help your organization reach PCI DSS compliance.

How can Encryption Consulting help you in achieving PCI DSS compliance using HSM?

Encryption Consulting provides extensive HSM assessment and design services to assist your organization in achieving and maintaining PCI DSS compliance. We evaluate your current HSM environment, identify the strengths and weaknesses of your HSM device, and provide strategies and recommendations for improvement. We utilize our expertise in HSM, and by following the industry’s best practices, we will help you optimize your HSM structure to protect your users’ sensitive data, reduce risks of key compromise, and enhance overall security.

As discussed previously, HSMs are very important for keeping personal data secure and providing a secure environment for cryptographic operations and key management. Our HSM assessment services help you analyze your specific use cases and business requirements to determine the best HSM solution and model for your enterprise.

Encryption Consulting will help you evaluate your HSM environment against industry PCI DSS standards. With our experience in HSM implementation and design, we will guide you in identifying areas of improvement in your HSM environment and help your organization maintain a strong HSM infrastructure to protect the crucial data of cardholders. Our goal for every HSM assessment is to:

Get a clear picture of how your organization currently uses HSMs.
Evaluate how well your HSM setup performs compared to industry standards.
Offer expert advice on improving your HSM system to meet your business goals.

With our Encryption Advisory services, you can leverage our various custom frameworks to perform a full-fledged assessment and audit of your encryption setup. We will help you identify and discover hidden risks and vulnerabilities so that your organization can become compliant with the required industry standards. Additionally, with strong encryption strategies, we will enhance your firm’s security and minimize the impacts of any cyber thefts.

Conclusion

HSMs are critical to achieving PCI DSS compliance in the payment card industry. Organizations dealing with highly secure information must configure HSMs properly in their system design, as HSMs significantly reduce the chance of financial losses and data breaches. From cryptographic key operations to secure payment transactions, HSM provides a secure environment to prevent any potential consequences of non-compliance with PCI DSS standards.

We have learned about the fundamentals of PCI DSS compliance, its requirements, and how an HSM plays a crucial role in achieving this industry standard. The integration and implementation of HSM are essential for businesses in the payment industry to meet PCI DSS compliance. With the growing risk of data breaches, your enterprise must utilize tamper-proof HSMs for the utmost security to protect sensitive cardholder data and transactions.

Your Guide to The New Federal Quantum Action Plan

As quantum computing continues to advance, the potential threat it poses to traditional cryptography has become a significant concern for governments and organizations worldwide. Recognizing the urgency of preparing for this new era of cryptography, the U.S. Federal Government has taken decisive steps to develop and implement a detailed Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) migration strategy. Please refer to the original document here.

This blog will explore the key elements of the Federal Quantum Action Plan, including the identification of systems that may not support PQC, the actions taken thus far, estimated costs, and the ongoing efforts led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish PQC standards.

Federal Quantum Action Plan and Strategy: Identifying Systems Unable to Support PQC

The 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS) outlines the Federal Government’s commitment to replacing or updating IT and Operational Technology (OT) systems that cannot defend against sophisticated cyber threats, including those posed by a Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computer (CRQC). One of the critical steps in this process is the early identification of systems that may not be capable of migrating to PQC.

There are various reasons why certain systems, both modern and legacy, might be unable to support PQC. Some hardware and software were not designed with cryptographic implementations that can be easily modified. Legacy systems, in particular, may lack the processing power, memory, or bandwidth required to implement PQC algorithms. Replacing these systems will likely be a time-consuming and resource-intensive task, already underway as part of the broader NCS implementation.

Agencies must identify these unsupported systems as early as possible to avoid delays in the PQC migration process. Given the interconnected nature of cryptographic systems across agency networks, the inability to migrate one system could hinder the migration of others.

To address this, agencies are encouraged to perform real-world testing using pre-standardized PQC algorithms and to continue these efforts once NIST finalizes the PQC standards. The guidance in OMB’s M-23-02 memorandum reinforces this approach, urging agencies to test PQC in production environments with appropriate safeguards to ensure the tests reflect real-world conditions.

Actions Taken: Laying the Groundwork for PQC Migration

In November 2022, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued M-23-02, a directive requiring federal agencies to prioritize the inventory of cryptographic systems and develop funding estimates for their migration to PQC. This memorandum also established an interagency PQC migration working group that meets bi-weekly and reports to a quarterly interagency policy committee on the implementation of National Security Memorandum 10 (NSM-10), which focuses on quantum-resistant cryptography.

In January 2024, OMB and the Office of Science and Technology Policy convened a roundtable with government representatives, industry leaders, and academic experts to discuss the requirements of NSM-10 and the relevant legislative acts. The insights gained from this roundtable are expected to guide future PQC migration efforts.

Looking ahead, OMB, in coordination with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and NIST, will issue guidance within one year of the adoption of the first set of NIST PQC standards. This guidance will direct agencies to develop prioritized migration plans and will continue to leverage the interagency working group to coordinate efforts and connect stakeholders as the migration progresses.

Estimating the Costs of PQC Migration: A Preliminary Financial Overview

The transition to PQC is expected to be a substantial financial undertaking. OMB and the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD), in collaboration with CISA and NIST, have been working with federal agencies to prepare for this transition. Their efforts have focused on three key activities:

Developing an Initial Cryptographic Inventory
Agencies have been tasked with creating an inventory of cryptographic systems on prioritized information systems, excluding national security systems (NSS).
Developing Cost Estimates
Based on the initial inventories, agencies have developed rough cost estimates for migrating their systems to PQC. The preliminary government-wide cost estimate for this migration, covering the period from 2025 to 2035, is approximately $7.1 billion (in 2024 dollars). Separate estimates are being developed by the Department of Defense, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Manager for NSS.
Prioritizing the Transition
Agencies have also developed criteria to prioritize systems for migration based on the specific conditions and qualities of their host systems and networks.

These cost estimates are subject to annual updates as agencies become more familiar with their cryptographic inventories, costing methodologies, and the transition process. The initial projections reflect a high level of uncertainty, as many systems may not be capable of accommodating new cryptographic algorithms due to limitations in their hardware or firmware. Replacing these systems is expected to constitute a significant portion of the overall migration cost.

NIST’s Role in Developing PQC Standards and Addressing Challenges

The success of the Federal Government’s PQC migration strategy hinges on the widespread availability and adoption of open PQC standards. NIST is leading this effort through an open standards development process, which involves extensive collaboration with cryptographers and security researchers both in the U.S. and internationally. This process began in December 2016 when NIST issued a public call for PQC algorithm submissions.

Since then, NIST has methodically evaluated submitted algorithms, advancing the most promising candidates through multiple rounds of review. By July 2020, NIST had selected four algorithms for initial standardization, with additional candidates being considered as new use cases emerge.

However, strong algorithms alone are not enough. The security of cryptographic systems also depends on how these algorithms are implemented. NIST, through its Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP), conducts independent tests to ensure that cryptographic defenses are correctly built and function as intended.

The CMVP has become a crucial part of the PQC migration process, but the volume of cryptographic modules awaiting testing has surged beyond current program capacity, leading NIST to initiate a CMVP modernization effort. This effort aims to expand testing lab capabilities, increase staffing, and secure contract support to handle submission surges, all of which are critical to clearing the current backlog and preparing for the future demands of PQC migration.

In addition to standardization, NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has launched the “Migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography” project, which explores best practices for preparing for and migrating to PQC. This project has produced several key publications, including:

NIST SP 1800-38B
Approach, Architecture, and Security Characteristics of Public Key Application Discovery Tools.
NIST SP 1800-38C
Quantum Resistant Cryptography Technology Interoperability and Performance Report.

Timeline of Key Milestones in the PQC Migration Process

The journey to PQC migration has been marked by several key milestones:

April 2015: Workshop on Cybersecurity in a Post-Quantum World held at NIST, Gaithersburg, MD.
December 2016: Federal Register Notice announces Request for Nominations for Public-Key Post-Quantum Cryptographic Algorithms.
July 2020: Third-round finalists and alternate candidates announced by NIST.
June 2021: Third NIST PQC Standardization Conference held virtually.
January 2024: OMB and the Office of Science and Technology Policy convene the PQC interagency migration working group roundtable.

These milestones reflect the ongoing, collaborative effort between federal agencies, industry partners, and academic institutions to prepare for the transition to quantum-resistant cryptography.

How Encryption Consulting Can Help with Post-Quantum Cryptographic Migration

At Encryption Consulting, we offer Post-Quantum Cryptographic Advisory Services designed to help organizations navigate the complexities of quantum-era cybersecurity. Our services provide deep insights into potential quantum risks and guide you through the transition to quantum cyber-readiness, aligning with PQC standards recommended by CISA, NSA, and NIST.

We assist in evaluating and modernizing your cryptographic infrastructure through strategic planning and proactive cryptographic discovery. Our Quantum Readiness Roadmap & Strategy ensures a seamless transition to quantum-resistant cryptography, safeguarding your data against emerging quantum threats and ensuring long-term resilience.

Why Choose Us?

Quantum Threat Assessment: Identify and mitigate quantum risks to secure sensitive data.
Visibility and Compliance Enhancement: Ensure compliance and enhance the security posture of your cryptographic infrastructure.
Customized Strategy & Implementation: Develop and implement a tailored quantum-readiness strategy for a secure transition.
Future-Proofing Your Digital Assets: Reinforce security, compliance, and trust against rising quantum threats.

Prepare for the Quantum Era with Encryption Consulting! With our expertise, your organization can confidently face the future, ensuring that your cryptographic infrastructure is robust, compliant, and ready to withstand the challenges posed by quantum computing advancements.

Conclusion

The Federal Quantum Action Plan is a crucial initiative to protect digital infrastructure from the emerging threats of quantum computing. With a focus on identifying vulnerable systems, estimating migration costs, and developing robust PQC standards, the U.S. Federal Government is laying the groundwork for a secure transition.

As quantum technology continues to advance, staying ahead of potential threats and aligning with best practices will be essential for securing your digital assets. By partnering with Encryption Consulting, you can effectively address these challenges and secure your organization against the uncertainties of tomorrow.

Why Do Enterprises Need HSM Support?

Most, if not all, organizations in today’s world have or require a Hardware Security Module, or HSM, for their day-to-day security operations. Whether it be for security standards or just following best practices, HSM has become an inseparable part of the majority of organization’s security platforms. Configuring these devices is a crucial and relatively painless process, whereas managing an HSM after its configuration can get complicated.

Having the proper teams in place, keeping up to date with software and firmware patches, and managing the keys within the HSM are all critical components of managing an HSM, which is why getting outside support for your HSM is a great alternative to managing it yourself. Before we dive into the details of HSM management, let us first take a look at what an HSM is.

What is an HSM?

When discussing HSMs, it is first important to understand what components make up an HSM. There are many different brands and types of HSMs, with the most common being a general-purpose HSM, but the majority of HSM brands are all built the same way. They utilize a piece of hardware called a PCI card which is considered the brain of the HSM.

This card does all the cryptography operations and creates the crypto keys within the HSM. This “brain” of the HSM is the most important part, and it is surrounded by a case that protects the contents inside, and then there are other components within, such as power supplies, memory, etc.

Now the HSM itself is used in organizations to create and protect encryption keys for organizations. Storing encryption keys insecurely is one of the main reasons that cyber-attacks are able to occur. By gaining the use of an encryption key, a threat actor can pretend to be that organization and release code that is signed off by the organization to consumers, who will likely download the software and get injected with a virus or malware. As you can see, protecting these keys is of the utmost importance.

HSMs can be either on-premises or in the cloud, and they have a number of different forms they can take. These forms include simply the PCI card, the USB HSM, and the network HSM. Another reason many organizations use HSMs is that they have either best practices they are attempting to follow or they may have certain compliances they must meet due to their organization’s field. Now that we know what an HSM is let’s look at a few reasons why managing an HSM is so critical.

Why is it so critical to manage HSMs well?

Protecting Keys
Protecting your organization’s encryption keys is extremely vital. If an attacker or insider threat were to steal and misuse an encryption key, they could pass off a software update or new piece of software that contains malware to end users. These end users would trust that update or new software since the attacker would sign it with the stolen encryption key.

This would make the update or software seem like it is from the organization from which the key was stolen. Since it seems like it is from a trusted organization, the user would download it and become infected with malware. This would not only hurt the end user, but it would also hurt the reputation of the organization from which the key was stolen.
Meeting Compliance Standards
Most organizations have some kind of compliance standard that they need to meet, and this usually involves an HSM. Since an HSM, and a well-managed one at that, is necessary for most compliance standards today, it is vital to manage these HSMs well. When dealing with compliance standards, auditors are likely to come in and check on your HSM management practices to ensure that all standards are being met.
Protecting Customer Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
PII, or Personally Identifiable Information, is customer data that needs to be kept secure such, as credit card numbers and social security numbers. This data needs to be secured with encryption keys. If this data is protected by an encryption key, but those keys are insecurely protected, then that PII can be stolen and misused. Additionally, many compliance standards will require the protection of PII via an HSM.
Tamper-Resistant Features
HSMs have tamper-resistant features, including tamper-resistant tapes. The tape is a feature that is attached to the back of the HSM, so if the tape is torn or broken, then it is assumed the HSM has been tampered with. The tamper-resistant features of an HSM include zeroizing the HSM if it is tampered with, such as shaking or moving the HSM.

These tamper-resistant features mean it is extremely important to store and manage these HSMs well, as keys can be lost if the HSMs are tampered with, which is why most HSMs are stored in data centers.

How Encryption Consulting Can Help

At Encryption Consulting, we offer a number of different HSM-related services. We can help your organization plan, design, and implement the best possible integration with an HSM for your organization. Along with the planning of the integration, we can also help with the configuration of the HSM, including configuring the integration with a Public Key Infrastructure, tools such as key managers, etc.

Additionally, Encryption Consulting can manage an HSM-as-a-Service for your organization. This means that the HSM will be in a data center, and we will take care of all of the maintenance, patching, and upgrading of the HSM. Even though we are managing the HSM, you will only have access to the encryption keys within. This ensures that the keys are in a secure location that only team members of your organization can access, but you do not need to deal with managing the HSM.

With our team of experts with multiple years of experience, you can rest assured that our support team can manage your HSM in the best way possible. We also monitor your HSM constantly, as we want to ensure the best possible performance and continual use of your HSM. Our HSM support also includes a reliable backup, disaster recovery, and restoration setup for your environment.

Our HSM monitoring team takes regular backups of your HSM, which is a vital step in ensuring restoration is quick and easy if a disaster occurs and your HSM is zeroized. Our team members are available 24/7, so you can rest assured all of your questions will be answered immediately and swiftly.

Conclusion

As you can see, managing your organization’s HSMs is an extremely critical component of the infrastructure in your organization. Protecting customer PII, keeping encryption keys secure, and storing these HSMs in a location where they cannot be tampered with are key components of managing these HSMs properly. With Encryption Consulting, we can take away the hassle of managing your HSM while still keeping the keys in your control. Reach out to our website for more information on Encryption Consulting’s HSM-as-a-Service or how else we can help with the configuration, design, and implementation of HSMs for your organization.

Regulatory Compliance 101: Laws, Requirements & Best Practices

Every day, our personal data is gathered and stored on electronic devices. From our sensitive financial information to our health records, everything gets stored on these devices. This makes the security of these devices an imperative step and that’s where regulatory compliance plays an instrumental role in ensuring that organizations from around the world are taking all the necessary steps to protect our data. Regulatory compliance has turned out to be a fundamental aspect of corporate governance.

What is regulatory compliance?

Regulatory compliance is defined as the ability to meet the requirements of laws, regulations, guidelines, and specifications that apply to business processes. To organizations, particularly those that deal with sensitive information, compliance is not just a legal requirement but is the bedrock of doing business.

Data protection is one of the most important areas of regulation that needs to be followed by all organizations with no scope for errors. With data breaches being on a rampant rise and cyber threats advancing at an unprecedented pace, legal frameworks like GDPR and HIPAA have created guidelines and necessary steps to ensure that an individual’s sensitive data always remains secure. Data protection regulations specify how data should be gathered, stored, processed, and used, to uphold the privacy of the individual.

It is extremely important for organizations like yours to understand the relationship between regulation and data protection to reduce risks, avoid fines, and protect the company’s brand.

Additionally, regulatory compliance is essential for enhancing trust and maintaining a competitive advantage. Our blog will focus on what regulatory compliance is, the regulations that one should know, and how to not just meet compliance but consistently stay compliant.

Key Regulatory Compliance Laws and Frameworks

Before exploring these frameworks, organizations need to understand that regulations are not universal and require a customized approach to meet your specific industry standard. There are several factors that you need to consider because every industry, region, and country has its specific frameworks that create guidelines precisely to protect a very industry-specific data in a very specific manner to meet certain benchmark requirements and prevent the threats of data leakers and cyber attacks.

Some frameworks like the GDPR have a broader coverage in the global market whereas others like HIPAA and CCPA are very specific to some industries or regions. Understanding these differentiating factors can help your organization utilize your resources more effectively by applying only the most suitable compliance measures that fit your operations to address the legal requirements and retain stakeholder confidence.

Here are the key regulatory compliance laws that you need to be aware of:

Overview: The GDPR is a general data protection regulation that has been enacted by the European Union (EU) to protect people’s rights and their sensitive data. It describes how personal data should be processed in storage or transit either within or outside the EU. The regulation applies to any company that processes the data of EU citizens regardless of the company’s location.

Key Requirements:

Explicit Consent: The GDPR mandates that your organization can only process the personal data of an individual with their prior and unambiguous consent.
Data Protection by Design and by Default: It is important that data protection measures are built into your system and processes from the ground up and are at the very core of all your business operations.
Data Subject Rights: Data subjects have the right to obtain their data, to correct it, to erase it, the right to data portability, and the right to object.
Data Breach Notification: The organizations are obliged to notify the supervisory authorities and the data subjects within 72 hours of the breach identification.
Penalties: Non-compliance can lead to substantial fines, determined by the severity and nature of the violation. The fines can be up to €20 million or 4% of the organization’s total annual worldwide turnover, whichever is higher. Factors such as the duration and impact of the infringement, the degree of cooperation with authorities, and the measures taken to mitigate the damage are considered when determining the penalty. Non-compliance can also result in reputational damage and loss of customer trust.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Overview: HIPAA is a U. S. law that seeks to ensure that privacy and security of people’s health information is guaranteed. This applies to healthcare, health plans, and their business associates who deal with protected health information (PHI).

Key Requirements:

Privacy Rule: Sets the guidelines on the use of PHI and gives patients the right to control their health information, including the right to get copies of their records and request changes.
Security Rule: Mandates the administrative, physical, and technical measures that must be put in place to protect ePHI.
Breach Notification Rule: It is mandated for organizations to notify affected individuals, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and, in some cases, the media of a breach of unsecured PHI. Notifications must be made without any unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after the discovery of the breach. The notification must include a description of the breach, the types of information involved, steps individuals should take to protect themselves, and what the organization is doing to investigate the breach, mitigate harm, and prevent further breaches.
Penalties: Penalties for non-compliance can range from $100 to $50,000 per violation with a maximum annual penalty of $1. 5 million. There are also criminal consequences such as imprisonment for willful negligence of the compliance standards.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

Overview: PCI DSS is a security standard that aims to make sure that all companies that accept, process, store, or transfer credit card information take all the necessary steps to protect this sensitive information. It applies to all organizations, big and small, that process cardholder data, irrespective of the number of transactions.

Key Requirements:

Data Protection: Cardholder data must be protected through encryption and storage techniques that are secure in the organization.
Secure Network: Use of firewalls, antivirus, and other measures to secure the data.
Access Control: Limitation of access to the cardholder data to only those people who require it for performing their business functions.
Monitoring and Testing: Continuously scan networks and perform risk analysis to maintain security over the networks.

Penalties: Compliance failure can result in fines, and higher transaction fees, and in some cases, the right to process credit card payments can also be withdrawn. Organizations also face the risks of potential reputational damage and the loss of customers’ trust.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

Overview: CCPA is a state law aimed at strengthening privacy and consumer protection for individuals residing in California, USA. It empowers consumers to have more control over the information that businesses gather about them and affects firms that meet specific revenue or data processing requirements.

Key Requirements:

Transparency: Companies are required to inform the public about the kind of information they gather and how it will be used.
Consumer Rights: Consumers have the right to know what information is being collected about them, to have it deleted, and to not have their information sold.
Non-Discrimination: The CCPA also bars organizations from discriminating against consumers who exercise their rights under the CCPA.

Recent Update:

In November 2020, California residents voted to pass Proposition 24, which implements the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) that modifies CCPA and adds further privacy measures operative from January 1, 2023. The CPRA adds new rights for consumers, including:

Right to Correct: Consumers have the right to demand from businesses to update any inaccurate personal information they have on them.
Right to Limit Use of Sensitive Information: Consumers possess the right to control the usage of critical personal information, including race, religion, or health, that businesses have access to.

Impact on Consumers: These updates enhance consumer control over their personal information, providing more robust privacy protections. Consumers can now correct inaccuracies and limit the use of their sensitive data, ensuring greater transparency and security in how their information is handled.

Impact on Businesses: Companies subject to the CCPA must now implement procedures to comply with these new consumer rights, which may require updates to their data management practices, privacy policies, and consumer communication strategies.

Penalties: Failure to comply can attract civil penalties of up to $7,500 for each violation. Also, consumers have the right to seek compensation if their data gets leaked because of the company’s negligence in adopting adequate security measures.

Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)

Overview: FIPS are published standards that are issued by NIST for adoption by all civilian departments and agencies of the federal government of the United States and its contractors. These standards help to ensure that data and information systems are protected and can work together.

Key Requirements:

Cryptographic Standards: FIPS 140-2 provides the specifications for the cryptographic modules that are used in the protection of information.
Data Security: FIPS standards require the use of certain protocols and technologies to protect federal information.
Interoperability: Makes sure that the systems and technologies employed by various agencies are integrated.

Penalties: Although there are no fines for non-compliance with FIPS, non-compliance with these standards can lead to breaches, loss of government contracts, and reputational damage. It can also lead to non-compliance with other regulations that require FIPS compliance as well.

Core Requirements of Data Protection Laws

Despite the differences in various data protection regulations from around the world, there are fundamental principles that are inherent in almost all data protection laws. These principles are the building blocks of data protection and guarantee that personal data is processed responsibly. Here are some of the essential principles:

1. Data Minimization

Principle: Data minimization means that one should only collect and process the data that is required for a particular purpose. This principle is useful in minimizing the exposure and misuse of data by ensuring that an organization deals with only a small portion of an individual’s data.

Implementation:

Assess the relevance of each data field that is gathered from the forms and other data collection procedures.
It is recommended to check the databases and delete the information that is no longer needed to avoid cluttering the system.
Restrict the availability of personal data to only those employees or systems that have a business need to use it.

Principle: It is important to ensure that individuals provide their consent before their personal data is collected and processed. Taking clear, informed consent from individuals before their information can be processed is an important step that organizations cannot overlook.

Implementation:

Provide clear and concise information about data processing activities and obtain consent through opt-in mechanisms.
Ensure that consent forms are easily understandable and accessible, avoiding complex legal jargon that a common individual cannot understand.
Allow people to opt out anytime and respond to their requests as soon as possible.

3. Data Security

Principle: We recommend putting adequate security measures in place to prevent the risks of data loss, theft, or breach of personal data. This includes technical, administrative, and physical measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.

Implementation:

Encrypt data to ensure that it is safe when it is being transmitted and when it is stored.
Ensure that there are strict measures of access control such as the use of strong passwords, smart cards, and other forms of identification as well as the use of access control based on the roles of the users.
Perform periodic security reviews and risk assessments to determine the organization’s security weaknesses.
Implement strict data protection measures that include the formulation of a data protection policy that will guide the handling of personal data.

4. Data Subject Rights

Principle: Data subjects have the right to obtain, rectify, erase, and limit the processing of their data. There are certain rights that individuals have, and organizations must provide easy ways through which people can exercise these rights and also respond to them in the shortest time possible.

Implementation:

Set up a clear procedure for people to ask for their data and correct any misinformation that is available in the data records.
Offer choices to the users to erase their data or limit the processing of their data as required by the law.
Make sure that employees understand the significance of data subject rights and the processes that should be followed when dealing with such requests.

5. Breach Notification

Principle: In the case of a data breach, the organization must inform the affected individuals as well as the appropriate authorities. The nature of the breach and all measures that are taken by the organizations to minimize the effects of the breach should be stated clearly.

Implementation:

Formulate an overall incident management strategy that provides guidelines for recognizing, combating, and restoring after data loss incidents.
Ensure timely and transparent communication with affected individuals, providing details about the breach and recommended actions to protect themselves.
Inform the regulatory authorities within the stipulated time, which is normally 72 hours, upon realization of the breach.
Carry out assessments after a breach to determine the causes and take necessary steps to avoid such occurrences.

The following are the general principles of data protection laws that form the basis of implementing a sound data protection architecture within an organization. Thus, it is possible to identify the key principles designed to help businesses meet the legal requirements and, at the same time, gain stakeholders’ confidence and trust.

Best Practices for Achieving Regulatory Compliance

Even if it can be challenging to fulfill the legal obligations, the application of the measures specified in the best practices may facilitate this issue and improve the outcomes of the organization’s functioning. Here are some essential strategies that we recommend:

1. Conduct Regular Risk Assessments

Identify Vulnerabilities: Regular risk assessments are necessary to identify the vulnerabilities and areas that need improvements. This approach is efficient because it allows an organization to deal with issues even before they impose a considerable challenge.
Implement Mitigation Plans: Develop and implement measures to respond to the threats that have been raised. We also advise you to revise these plans from time to time so that you can ensure that they are still effective and relevant.

2. Implement Strong Access Controls

Role-Based Access: Ensure that the information that is to be classified is only accessible by those people who are authorized to get access to it. RBAC should be adopted to ensure that every user only gets the access level that he or she deserves.
Regular Audits: Conduct routine audits on permissions to ensure that only those with the right clearance level can access restricted information and programs.

3. Encrypt Sensitive Data

Data at Rest and in Transit: Make sure data is protected, the best methods being the use of proper encryption when data is stored and when it is being transmitted. The intended implication of this is that even if the data is intercepted, it cannot be read, and therefore, it is secure.
Encryption Policies: It is appropriate to develop and follow standard procedures regarding encryption where the condition of what data qualifies for encryption and the ideal standard should be specified.

4. Train Employees

Make sure the employees are trained from time to time to know about the legal requirements and regulatory provisions as well as physical security measures and policies on data management. Ensure that training reflects the new regulations and threats that are in place.

5. Maintain Detailed Records

Document Data Processing Activities: Maintain records of every activity involving data processing such as elements involved in data collection, storage, and sharing. These records are critical for proving compliance and for any forms of audits from the organization and other entities.
Audit Trails: Keep an up-to-date audit log that contains information on any access, change, or update of the sensitive data. Be certain that these logs are periodically checked and properly archived.

6. Create a Compliance Team

Dedicated Resources: Form a compliance department that will be in charge of all compliance activities within your organization. Make sure the team has all the required tools and means to enforce effective compliance throughout your organization.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Encourage compliance team engagement with other departments and divisions so that every division within the organization is on the same page in terms of compliance.

7. Perform Regular Audits and Assessments

Internal Audits: Internal audits, which are performed by your staff or an internal audit department, should be conducted on a regular basis. These audits are mainly concerned with assessing your company’s level of compliance with the set legal standards and organizational policies. Internal audits are useful because they reveal possible problems and opportunities for change from within the organization.
External Audits: Hire external auditors, who are third-party professionals, to conduct external audits. These auditors offer an independent opinion on the extent to which your company complies with the relevant regulations and standards. External audits are more objective and can reveal some problems that may have not been noticed by internal auditors, thus providing a more accurate assessment of your compliance level.
Continuous Improvement: Develop a mechanism for constant review and enhancement of the system based on the audit findings and compliance reviews. Ensure that compliance strategies are updated from time to time to meet new challenges and changes in the law. This includes reviewing audit results, making necessary changes, and evaluating the results of these changes in the future.

8. Stay Informed About Regulatory Changes

Regulatory Updates: Subscribe to regulatory updates and industry publications to stay informed about changes in regulations. This helps ensure that compliance efforts remain current and effective.
Industry Engagement: Attend industry meetings and interact with regulatory agencies to identify new compliance trends and standards.

Challenges in Data Protection Compliance

Several challenges arise when implementing data protection laws. These challenges pose a great deal of pressure on organizations as they try to meet the regulations while at the same time running their operations. Here are some common challenges:

1. Changing Regulations

Continuous Updates: The data protection regulations are commonly revised to reflect the emergent threats and innovations in technology. Maintaining such changes can be cumbersome which necessitates keen observation of changes and adaptability to same.
Global Variability: There are many nations and regions all over the world that have their own set of rules and regulations regarding data protection. Businesses covering their operations on the international level face legal challenges as the organizational policies need to be aligned with the existing legislation across the countries of operation.
Regulatory Ambiguities: Certain rules could be worded vaguely or even in a conflicting manner to enable different interpretations. These requirements must be looked at more closely so that compliance can be achieved in the right manner.

2. Complex Data Environments

Distributed Data: Today’s organizations collect data in several systems, clouds, and even different geographic areas. Maintaining integrity and compliance with such diverse settings may prove to be difficult at times.
Data Silos: Information can be localized within separate departments or sections, which hampers attempts to apply a consistent approach to compliance. What needs to be done is to dismantle these silos and develop a coherent compliance plan.
Legacy Systems: Some organizations operate on old IT systems, which can be a big problem when it comes to data protection norms. Their upgrade or integration into a legal framework may be complex and costly.

3. Balancing Security and Usability

User Experience: Applying strict security measures can sometimes get in the way of usability, leading to frustration for both employees and customers. It is crucial to find the right balance between strong security and seamless user experience.
Operational Efficiency: Overly complex compliance procedures can slow operations down and reduce efficiency. Organizations must design processes that protect data without getting in the way of workflow and productivity.

4. Resource Constraints

Financial Burden: Compliance efforts require significant financial investment in technology, personnel, and training. To meet compliance requirements, smaller organizations may struggle to allocate sufficient resources.
Limited Expertise: The complexity of data protection laws requires specialized knowledge. Smaller organizations may not have the in-house expertise required to navigate these regulations, making compliance more challenging.
Time and Effort: Achieving and maintaining compliance is an ongoing effort that requires a lot of attention and time. Organizations should regularly review and update their compliance strategies, which can be resource-intensive.

Our Recommendations for Overcoming These Challenges

Stay Informed and Constantly Adapt
Regularly monitor changes in data protection regulations through trusted sources, including legal advisors, industry groups, and external experts. Adapting your compliance policies promptly to these changes ensures that your organization remains compliant without causing any disruption.
Integrate Compliance Across All Data Systems
Use centralized data management platforms that can unify and streamline data across different systems, locations, and environments. This helps to maintain consistent compliance efforts, regardless of where data is stored or processed.
Foster Collaboration Between Departments
Break down data silos by encouraging collaboration and communication between departments. Implement cross-functional teams responsible for data protection compliance to ensure a coherent and organization-wide approach.
Invest in Modern Infrastructure
Upgrade legacy systems to newer, more compliant technologies. Modern infrastructure can more easily integrate security and compliance measures, reducing the complexity and cost of maintaining outdated systems.
Balance Security and User Experience
Implement security measures that are robust yet user-friendly. This can be achieved by using technologies like single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA), which enhance security without compromising usability.
Allocate Resources Effectively
Prioritize spending on compliance by investing in the right technologies, hiring experts, and providing ongoing training. Even smaller organizations can leverage cost-effective solutions such as cloud-based compliance tools to manage their compliance needs efficiently.
Enhance Expertise Through Training
Regularly train employees on the latest data protection requirements and security protocols. Building in-house expertise reduces reliance on external consultants and ensures that your team can respond quickly to compliance challenges.
Automate Compliance Processes
Use automation tools to handle routine compliance tasks such as monitoring data access, generating audit logs, and flagging potential issues. Automation can save time, reduce errors, and ensure continuous compliance without overwhelming your resources.
Plan for Continuous Improvement
Regularly review and update your compliance strategies based on audit findings, regulatory changes, and new threats. Establish a culture of continuous improvement where compliance is an ongoing process rather than a one-time effort.

Future Trends in Data Protection and Compliance

In recent years, due to the growth of technology, the field of data protection and compliance has been under constant change. Keeping track of these changes is very important for ensuring that the organization is compliant, and that information is secured. Key trends to watch for are:

AI and Machine Learning
These technologies will have great importance in ensuring data security because they are more efficient in detecting threats and able to perform compliance tasks without involving human resources, thereby mitigating the risks of human errors.
Privacy by Design
Following the data protection principles right from the initial stage of designing products & services will be more relevant in the future. It enables your organization to undertake measures towards the protection of data, thus building trust amongst your users.
Advancements in Encryption
As the requirement for security increases, stronger encryption methods, like homomorphic encryption, will become more popular and widely incorporated.
Stricter Data Protection Regulations
As more data breaches and privacy issues arise, governments are expected to continue improving regulatory standards globally, which in turn requires constant attention and changes for organizations.
Data Sovereignty Laws
Data sovereignty laws that mandate data should be stored and processed within its country of origin present a challenge that organizations will need to adapt to.
Accountability and Transparency
More focus will be placed on accountability and transparency in data usage with more stringent rules for reporting breaches of data. To reflect this commitment to safety, organizations will have to develop strong policies on safety augmentation by training and creating accountability structures.
Blockchain Technology
Blockchain, in the context of data transactions, provides an advantage in transparency and security since it is distributive and cannot be easily altered. As much as it does help compliance efforts, there are issues such as the right to be forgotten and data immutability that need to be solved because blockchain technology’s permanent data storage may cause clashes with present legislation that demands the capacity to erase personal information.

How Encryption Consulting Can Help?

At Encryption Consulting, we offer Encryption Advisory Services that are designed to help organizations like yours achieve regulatory compliance and protect your data. Here’s how we can support you:

Assessment

We conduct thorough assessments using a custom framework based on standards like NIST, FIPS 140-2, PCI DSS, and more to ensure you align with the compliance requirements. Our assessments identify areas needing improvement and recommend strategies to address these gaps.

Strategy Development

We develop effective encryption strategies based on your organization’s specific needs. This includes data classification, risk assessment, and alignment with your data security goals that align with all of the above regulation guidelines.

Implementation

Our team works with you to design and implement encryption governance, key management, and business process modernization. We provide project management support to ensure seamless execution of encryption initiatives.

Audit

We analyze your encryption architecture for vulnerabilities and verify compliance with industry standards. Our audits uncover hidden gaps and provide actionable recommendations to enhance your data protection strategy.

Ongoing Support

We offer ongoing support to ensure that your data protection practices remain effective and compliant with the changing regulations. Our experts are always available to provide guidance and assistance.

Conclusion

Regulatory compliance and data protection are essential for any organization handling sensitive information. By understanding key data protection laws, adhering to core requirements, and implementing best practices, organizations can achieve compliance and secure their data. The journey to compliance can be challenging, but with the right strategies and support, it is attainable.

At Encryption Consulting, we are committed to helping organizations navigate the complexities of regulatory compliance. Our Encryption Advisory Services provide the expertise and resources needed to protect your data and ensure compliance with the latest regulations. Reach out to us at [email protected] to learn how we can help you achieve your data protection goals.

Firefox’s Mozilla Follows Google in Distrusting Entrust’s TLS Certificates

Mozilla has announced it will officially stop trusting Entrust as a root certificate authority (CA) starting November 30, 2024, due to a prolonged period of compliance failures. This decision follows a similar move by Google Chrome, which cut ties with Entrust a month earlier, citing a pattern of concerning behaviors.

Google’s Initial Decision

In June 2024, Google was the first to drop Entrust as a CA, stating that the company had exhibited a “pattern of concerning behaviors.” This decision came after numerous compliance incidents were reported, leading Google to lose confidence in Entrust’s ability to meet industry standards.

Mozilla’s Stance

Mozilla’s root store manager, Ben Wilson, shared an email explaining the decision, highlighting that despite Entrust’s efforts to address the issues, their response did not inspire confidence. Wilson emphasized that Entrust’s updated report did not differ meaningfully from previous commitments made in 2020, which were subsequently broken.

Mozilla’s decision was based on multiple factors:

Repeated Compliance Failures: Between March and May 2024, Mozilla noted 22 separate incidents involving Entrust, many related to delays and missed deadlines.
Inadequate Response: Entrust’s response to Mozilla’s concerns did not demonstrate a significant change or improvement in their operations.
Historical Context: Entrust’s previous commitments in 2020 were not upheld, leading to the current situation.

Akamai’s Response to Google Chrome’s Distrust of Entrust

Following Google’s decision, Akamai has announced specific measures regarding Entrust-issued certificates. While Akamai will continue to support Entrust-issued edge certificates used on their Secure CDN until they expire, they recommend replacing these certificates to avoid disruption in secure traffic delivery to Google Chrome clients. For origin connections, Akamai will remove all Entrust and AffirmTrust root certificates from their trust store by March 1, 2025. Users are advised to replace affected certificates promptly to maintain secure connections and avoid potential traffic disruptions.

Why Distrust Happens?

1. The Role of CAs and Compliance

Certification authorities (CAs) are crucial in establishing trust on the internet, providing certificates that enable encrypted connections between browsers and websites. To maintain this trust, CAs must adhere to strict industry standards and security practices, as defined by the CA/Browser (CA/B) Forum’s Baseline Requirements. These standards cover:

Validation Processes: Proper validation of certificate requests to ensure the authenticity of the entity requesting the certificate.
Operational Security: Robust security measures to protect the CA’s infrastructure and prevent unauthorized issuance of certificates.
Adherence to Protocols: Compliance with established protocols for certificate issuance, management, and revocation.

2. Audits and Accountability

CAs are held accountable through regular audits conducted by independent third parties. These audits verify that the CA complies with the CA/B Forum’s Baseline Requirements. Failure to meet these standards can result in browsers distrusting the CA’s certificates.

3. The Decision-Making Process

When a browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox decides to distrust a CA, the process involves:

Evidence Gathering: Investigating the CA’s certificate issuance processes, operational security, and adherence to industry standards. This evidence is collected from transparency logs, forums, and public disclosures.
Assessment Against Standards: Evaluating the evidence against the CA/B Forum’s Baseline Requirements to determine compliance.
Public Disclosure and Response: Sharing findings with the CA and the public, allowing the CA to respond and outline corrective actions.
Final Decision: Based on the CA’s response and the severity of the issues, the browser may decide to distrust the CA if the response is deemed insufficient.

The Impact of Distrust

When a CA is distrusted, all certificates issued by that CA are no longer recognized as valid by the browser. This has significant implications:

Security Warnings: Websites using certificates from the distrusted CA will show security warnings, potentially leading to loss of user trust and vulnerabilities.
Compliance Risks: Organizations may face regulatory violations and audit failures if they do not replace distrusted certificates.
Operational Disruptions: Replacing certificates can cause service disruptions, increase operational costs, and require significant resources.

4. Detailed Mechanism of Distrust

Incident Reporting: The process begins with the detection and reporting of compliance incidents. These can be reported by security researchers, other CAs, or through automated monitoring systems.
Initial Review: The CA/B Forum or the browser’s root store management team conducts an initial review of the reported incidents. If the incidents are deemed serious, a more thorough investigation is initiated.
Investigation: The investigation involves examining the CA’s certificate issuance practices, reviewing audit reports, and assessing the overall security posture of the CA.
Public Disclosure: The findings of the investigation are made public, and the CA is given an opportunity to respond and outline corrective actions.
Evaluation of Response: The browser’s root store management team evaluates the CA’s response. If the response is deemed inadequate or if the CA fails to implement the corrective actions, the browser may proceed with distrust.
Distrust Decision: The final decision to distrust the CA is made, and an official announcement is released. The browser updates its root store to remove trust in the CA’s root certificates.
Impact on Certificates: All certificates issued by the distrusted CA become invalid. Websites using these certificates will show security warnings, and users are advised to replace the certificates with those from a trusted CA.

Historical Context of Symantec

The decision to distrust Entrust is reminiscent of the 2018 incident involving Symantec. Google found multiple instances of improper certificate issuance by Symantec, leading to a phased removal of trust in its certificates by major browsers. This ultimately resulted in Symantec selling its CA business to DigiCert.

How Enterprise Organizations Can Prepare?

To mitigate the impact of CA distrust, organizations should adopt a defense-in-depth strategy with Crypto-Agility:

Backup CAs: Have alternative CAs ready to issue replacement certificates.
Automated Tools: Use automated certificate lifecycle management tools to streamline the replacement process.
Regular Audits and Monitoring: Conduct regular audits and continuous monitoring to detect and address compliance issues promptly.
Incident Response Plan: Maintain an updated incident response plan to handle CA compromises efficiently.

Conclusion

The distrust of Entrust by Mozilla and Google underscores the importance of strict compliance and robust security practices for CAs. Organizations relying on digital certificates must remain vigilant, ensuring they can adapt quickly to changes in the CA landscape to maintain security and trust.

Mozilla’s decision to distrust Entrust highlights the need for transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement in the CA ecosystem. By understanding the mechanisms behind CA distrust and implementing best practices for Crypto-Agility, organizations can better prepare for and respond to such incidents, ensuring the security and trustworthiness of their digital communications.

Lessons from DigiCert’s Mass Certificate Revocation

In recent cybersecurity news, DigiCert has made headlines with a significant certificate revocation event affecting more than 83,000 certificates across nearly 7,000 customers. This incident underscores the critical need for robust certificate management practices and crypto-agility to swiftly address and mitigate security vulnerabilities.

Understanding Certificate Revocation and Its Impact

The recent DigiCert incident has highlighted the critical importance of efficient certificate management processes and the challenges organizations face when dealing with such emergencies. This revocation, stemming from a five-year-old programming flaw related to domain ownership validation, underscores the potential disruption and risk to critical services and infrastructures when certificates are suddenly deemed untrustworthy.

What Happened?

On July 29, DigiCert announced that certain security certificates needed to be replaced within 24 hours due to a flaw in their validation process. This affected approximately 0.4% of their domain validations, translating to over 83,000 certificates impacting nearly 7,000 customers. The urgency and scale of this revocation have led to significant operational challenges and highlighted the need for a more agile approach to cryptographic management.

Specific Challenges in the DigiCert Incident:

1. No Prior Notice

A major challenge of this incident was the lack of advance notice. Customers were informed only after the revocations had occurred, leaving them with little time to react and replace the certificates. This short notice created immense pressure on IT teams to quickly address the issue.

2. Operational Impact

The revocation did not pose a direct risk at the moment, but the operational impact was significant. Many organizations faced potential service disruptions and had to scramble to update certificates across numerous systems and applications.

3. Manual and Automated Processes

While some organizations could automate certificate management tasks, many had to rely on manual processes. This required significant effort and coordination, especially for large enterprises managing numerous systems and applications.

4. Real-World Implications

The tight revocation deadline risked significant service interruptions and safety issues. Some customers sought extensions due to exceptional circumstances, highlighting the need for more flexible and scalable certificate management solutions.

To effectively manage certificate lifecycles and mitigate the impact of mass revocations, organizations can benefit from using CertSecure Manager. Here’s how CertSecure Manager can help:

1. Automated Certificate Management

CertSecure Manager automates key aspects of certificate management, including discovery, issuance, renewal, and revocation. This automation helps ensure that certificates are updated promptly, reducing the risk of service disruptions.

2. Centralized Dashboard

The solution provides a centralized dashboard offering real-time visibility into the status of all certificates. This visibility allows organizations to proactively manage their certificates, track expirations, and quickly address any issues that arise.

3. Rapid Response Capabilities

With CertSecure Manager, organizations can quickly respond to certificate revocations by automating the replacement process. This rapid response capability is crucial in minimizing downtime and maintaining service continuity during mass revocation events.

4. Scalability and Flexibility

CertSecure Manager is designed to scale with the needs of large enterprises. It integrates seamlessly with existing IT infrastructure and workflows, providing the flexibility needed to handle extensive certificate inventories and complex environments.

5. Enhanced Security and Compliance

By keeping an updated inventory of certificates and automating lifecycle management, CertSecure Manager enhances overall security and ensures compliance with industry standards. It helps organizations respond efficiently to vulnerabilities and maintain secure communications.

Conclusion

The DigiCert certificate revocation crisis highlights the importance of having robust certificate management solutions in place. By leveraging automated certificate management solutions like CertSecure Manager, organizations can effectively manage certificate lifecycles, mitigate the impact of mass revocations, and prevent service disruptions. Investing in certificate management solutions is essential for maintaining operational stability and protecting digital assets in the face of unforeseen challenges.

Introduction to CertSecure Manager: Encryption Consulting’s Flagship Certificate Management Solution

Certificates have become a key component in today’s cyberspace where each component requires a certificate to confirm its identity. From users to servers to applications, every part of the organization requires a certificate to function as intended. While this enhances the Organization’s overall security, as the organization grows it becomes difficult to manage such certificates which includes renewing them, revoking them and sometimes issuing certificates on a large scale.

While MDM solutions like Intune can make it easier to issue required certificates to machines and technologies like auto-enrollment can provide certificates to users and machines as well, the problem arises when we need to issue those certificates to servers and applications.

PKI serves as the backbone of these certificates. While some certificates are issued by public CAs, majority of the certificates are issued by private CAs, and managing such private CAs becomes the responsibility of the SOC team (or other security team) which increases the operational complexity of the overall process.

In this blog let us take a deeper dive into the world of certificate management, some of the best practices, some common challenges and finally how Encryption Consulting can help with their expertise as well as with our own CertSecure Manager solution.

What is a Certificate Lifecycle Management solution?

As we already established above, every organization needs a proper valid certificate to function which is trusted by the whole organization. These certificates would be issued to end-entities such as users, computers, networking equipment, servers, applications and so on. If the underlying PKI which is providing trust and visibility of these certificates is facing an outage, then none of the components of the organization will work. Employees cannot get into buildings without proper smartcards, people cannot use VPNs, machines, servers and applications will cease function and it will be a complete chaos.

Managing these certificates and their underlying infrastructure is crucial for the organization to function normally. These certificates go through phases from issuance to revocation where each phase of the lifecycle is crucial for the organization to maintain properly. And if a certificate which is about to expire isn’t monitored or renewed timely then it may cause unforeseen outages in the server/application using said certificate. Hence proper monitoring, ownership and renewal of certificates becomes important.

The stages of the certificate lifecycle are as follows:

Discovery
The discovery phase of the certificate lifecycle involves searching the network for missing, expired, compromised, or unused certificates that must be revoked, renewed, or replaced. This is an important part of the process, as it finds gaps in the security of certificates and relays these gaps to the monitoring phase, allowing for the sealing of these breaches. Normally, this phase also deals with the inventorying of certificates to help in future Discovery phases, along with any certificate audits that may occur.
Creation/Purchasing
This is the phase where the certificate is created. An online user, organization, or device requests a certificate from a Certificate Authority, which contains the public key and other enrollment information needed to enroll the user. The CA then verifies the given information and, if it is legitimate, creates the certificate. The Certificate Authority used to create the certificate can be owned by the organization that desires the certificate, or by a third-party. If the certificate is obtained from a third-party, then it must be purchased from them.
Installation
The installation of the certificate is straightforward, but still just as important. The certificate must be installed in a secure, but reachable, location, as users attempting to verify the authenticity of the certificate must have access to it. When the certificate is installed, the CA puts policies in place to ensure the security and proper handling of the certificate.
Storage
As previously mentioned, when the certificate is installed, it must be in a secure location to prevent compromise. It should not, however, be so secure that the users that need to read the certificate cannot reach it. The proper policies and regulations to implement for storage of certificates will be discussed later in this document.
Monitoring
Monitoring is one of the most important stages of the certificate lifecycle. This is an almost constant phase where the certificate management systems, whether automatic or manual, watch for breaches, expirations, or compromises of digital certificates. The Monitoring stage uses the inventory created in the Discovery phase to keep track of when certificates should be revoked, renewed, or replaced. The certificate management system then moves those certificates to the next phase, which can be renewal, revocation, or replacement.
Renewal
Renewal of a certificate occurs when the expiry date of the certificate is reached. This occurs naturally with certificates, as best practice is to not use a certificate for more than 5 years at the most. Certificates can be set to renew automatically, or a list can be kept of certificate expiration dates and the administrator of the certificates can renew it at the proper time.
Revocation
If a certificate is found to be compromised, stolen, or otherwise negatively affected, then that certificate will be revoked. When a certificate is revoked, it is put on a Certificate Revocation List (CRL). This list ensures that other CAs know that this is no longer a valid certificate.
Replacement
The certificate is replaced when users switch from paying for certificates to creating their own Public Key Infrastructures (PKIs) and CAs. This is rarely done, as renewing a certificate from the original provider is much easier than replacing it.

Common challenges for organizations without CLM

With Microsoft AD CS being widely used in the industry with no proper CLM solution built with it, many organizations often face some challenges while operating their private as well as their public PKI, such as Digicert:

Manual Certificate Lifecycle Management
Without a proper CLM solution, teams are often responsible for issuing, renewing, and revoked certificates manually, tracking their owners, and renewing them timely before expiration. This type of process is prone to human error, which can lead to outages and operational inefficiencies.
Lack of central visibility/Purchasing
Organizations tend to have multiple CAs, including at least one Microsoft CA acting as a private CA and one public CA such as Digicert. Managing certificates from different CAs can often be challenging, as it involves tracking expiring certificates, renewing the certificates separately with their own defined process, and tracking the ownership of the certificates.
Limited reporting and insights
ADCS alone may not provide the detailed reporting and insights needed for proactive certificate management. A CLM solution enhances visibility into certificate usage and health.
Improper Policy Management
With multiple CAs being used to manage and issue certificates, implementation of organizational policies and ensuring it is adhered to can seem challenging as each CAs function differently, and sometimes there are no mechanism to apply such policies making the procedures prone to human errors.

Policy Management during Certificate Issuance and Revocation

Every organization has its internal policies which they need to abide by. These policies often contain restrictions such as:

What should be the minimum key size of the certificate?
What information should be contained inside the certificate, such as organization, Organization unit, etc., and should an email ID be present inside the certificate itself to track its owner?
The approval process for certain types of certificates is essential. Who should approve the type of certificate before issuance is often inscribed in the policies themselves, including how many approvals are needed for certain types of certificates.
If wildcard certificates are allowed to be issued.
If CSR can be reused to issue certificates again
What domains should be allowed as SAN attributes in the certificate?
Password policies in cases of PFX certificate

Governing by these policies can often be challenging for teams not using any CLM solution. We have encountered customers in the past who do not check any of these details or track proper ownership of the certificate. That would significantly increase risks and potential insider attacks within the organization.

CertSecure Manager also include one-click renew and revocation procedures where appropriate owners and admins can renew or revoke a certificate using a single click. After required permissions certificates are renewed/revoked from the CA with a confirmation message sent to the owners via emails and teams.

CertSecure Manager: Certificate Lifecycle Management Solution

While interacting with our clients, we learned about many of their issues. While there are many CLM solutions out there, none focus primarily on Microsoft AD CS, which still maintains the operational and monitoring sides of the PKI manual. This motivated us to create our own homegrown solution, which would help our customers with the problems they have been encountering with their own CLM solutions.

While constructing our solution, we focused on solving the key challenges first.

1. Automated Lifecycle Management

With CertSecure Manager, clients can integrate renewal agents with their servers such as Tomcat, Apache, ISS, load balancers such as F5 as well as their own internal applications. This will help the servers and applications rotate certificates automatically without any human intervention thereby minimizing outages as well as ensuring proper certificates are pushed to the server every time in a timely manner.

Clients can also integrate their own solutions with ACME or Rest APIs which will make it easier to get certificates easily for their application.

2. Centralized Visibility and Control

With CertSecure’s HA architecture and connectors clients can integrate all their CAs with CertSecure with no major network configuration needed. This will ensure any and all CAs, no matter if they are on cloud or on premises can be integrated with CertSecure. This will provide a single pane of glass for managing and issuing certificates across multiple private and public CAs.

This can also help operations team monitor their PKI directly from the dashboard. This will help ensure that all CDP/AIA points related to the CA are always active while also providing major updates on CRL and CA certificate renewal.

3. Policy Enforcement

CertSecure can help clients setup policy on a global as well as on a departmental level. This will ensure all users are abiding by the policies defined. These policies help dictate information such as:

a. How many approvals are needed to issue a certificate

b. If CSR can be reused and if users can request wildcard certificates

c. What DNS names are whitelisted which can be added to the certificates

Configure for CSR verification CertSecure

d. And finally, password policies for the PFX files

Moreover, we can also define which department gets access to which templates which creates further restrictions on what templates a user can access. So, for example, the production team will need access to DigiCert, which the development team will not. Similarly, the IT team may need access to webserver templates while they would not need codesigning certificates.

4. Principle of least privilege

With policies defined, clients can also define roles which can be assigned to the users. Users can then conduct functions which are only defined by the permissions that are set by the administrator.

5. Comprehensive monitoring and alerts

With CertSecure, clients can integrate alerts with Teams, Email, Service Now, with proper escalation protocol to ensure expiring certificates or PKI downtime are brought into attention at the earliest interval. This helps organizations minimize downtime while also having the ease of mind to maintain the security and functionality of the underlying infrastructure as well as of the certificates it issued.

6. Scheduled Reports

With CertSecure, users can schedule reports which will be delivered directly to their emails in a weekly or monthly manner. This will ease the operation side of things as well as provide visibility and provide a record of operations conducted by the PKI.

7. Easy Onboarding

Users can easily be onboarded using AD groups (including Azure AD Groups) into CertSecure which helps CertSecure monitor and add/remove users as they are added or removed from the group. Deregistering of the user results in transfer of ownership of certificates to department admins which make it easier to manage and keep the ownership of certificates as well as the alerts defined easier to process.

Conclusion

CertSecure Manager stands out as a comprehensive solution designed to address the complex challenges of Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM). By seamlessly integrating with both private and public Certificate Authorities, CertSecure Manager offers unparalleled centralized visibility and control, empowering organizations to manage their certificates with greater efficiency and security.

Through features like automated lifecycle management, policy enforcement, comprehensive monitoring, and scheduled reporting, CertSecure Manager ensures that your certificate infrastructure is not only robust but also resilient against potential disruptions. Its focus on the principle of least privilege further enhances security, ensuring that users have access only to the resources they need, thereby minimizing the risk of insider threats.

The ease of onboarding, coupled with integrations with Microsoft AD and Azure AD, simplifies user management and streamlines certificate lifecycle processes. With alerts and escalation protocols, CertSecure Manager provides peace of mind, ensuring that critical issues are promptly addressed, minimizing downtime, and maintaining the integrity of your PKI infrastructure.

Encryption Consulting’s commitment to continuous improvement and customer-centric solutions is evident in the development of CertSecure Manager. We remain dedicated to helping organizations achieve higher standards of security, compliance, and operational efficiency. Let CertSecure Manager be your trusted partner in navigating the complexities of certificate management, ensuring that your digital assets remain secure, compliant, and fully operational.

What is Encryption Consulting’s Code Signing Tool – CodeSign Secure?

Key Features relevant to AppLocker:

Why Use CodeSign Secure with AppLocker?

How does AppLocker use Code Signing for Application Control?

AppLocker Rule Types

Publisher Rules and Digital Certificates

Implementing Code Signing using CodeSign Secure for AppLocker

Setup CodeSign Secure

Obtain Code Signing Certificates

Code Signing Process

Configure AppLocker to Use Publisher Rules

Deploy and Enforce AppLocker Rules

Best Practices for Using CodeSign Secure with AppLocker

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Conclusion

It’s Time to prepare for a Post Quantum World

Strategy for Migration to PQC:

Know the PQC Timeline to Date:

How can Encryption consulting help you prepare for a PQC world?

1. Quantum Threat Assessment

2. Quantum Readiness Strategy and Roadmap

3. Build Crypto-Agility

4. Compliance Enhancement

5. Understanding Challenges and Providing Transition Support

6. Vendor Evaluation & POC (Proof of Concept)

Conclusion

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

Choosing what is right for you- PKI or PKIaaS?

Workflow of PKI-as-a-Service

Features of PKI-as-a-Service

Use cases

Why Encryption Consulting LLC?

Deploy PKI-as-a-Service in your environment.

Different deploying methods:

Conclusion

What is PCI DSS?

History of PCI DSS

PCI DSS requirements

Introduction to HSMs

The Role of HSMs in PCI DSS Compliance

Integration and Requirements of HSM for PCI DSS Compliance

1. Physical Security Requirements

2. Policy and Procedures

3. Logical Security Requirements

4. Cryptographic Key Operations

Consequences of Non-Compliance with PCI DSS Standards

How can Encryption Consulting help you in achieving PCI DSS compliance using HSM?

Conclusion

Federal Quantum Action Plan and Strategy: Identifying Systems Unable to Support PQC

Actions Taken: Laying the Groundwork for PQC Migration

Estimating the Costs of PQC Migration: A Preliminary Financial Overview

NIST’s Role in Developing PQC Standards and Addressing Challenges

Timeline of Key Milestones in the PQC Migration Process

How Encryption Consulting Can Help with Post-Quantum Cryptographic Migration

Why Choose Us?

Conclusion

What is an HSM?

Why is it so critical to manage HSMs well?

How Encryption Consulting Can Help

Conclusion

What is regulatory compliance?

Key Regulatory Compliance Laws and Frameworks

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Key Requirements:

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Key Requirements:

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

Key Requirements:

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

Key Requirements:

Recent Update:

Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)

Core Requirements of Data Protection Laws

1. Data Minimization

2. Consent

3. Data Security

4. Data Subject Rights

5. Breach Notification

Best Practices for Achieving Regulatory Compliance

1. Conduct Regular Risk Assessments