AI in Cybersecurity – “Moving forward Together” and Amping Up the Remediation Game

Until recently, the phrase ’90 days’ was commonly associated with productivity and quarterly plans. However, this changed on March 3rd, 2023, when Google announced a proposed policy change that is likely to disrupt the cybersecurity space. A case in point where simple policy changes can have a major impact at scale.

In a move to reinforce robust Internet security, Google announced a proposal called “Moving Forward, Together,” outlining some of the key policy changes it plans to introduce in future versions of its Chrome Root Program.

One of the significant changes proposed was reducing the maximum validity period for public TLS certificates from 398 days to 90 days. Google’s objective in doing this was to encourage automation and adoption of practices that simplify the certificate lifecycle management (CLM) process and support faster transitions to quantum-resistant algorithms. Additionally, Google proposed to limit domain validation reuse to 90 days, making frequent certificate renewals and domain re-validations necessary.

Impact on CLM Market

With increasing complexity in digital identities and the demand for secure and encrypted communication, these changes pose a significant challenge for organizations managing thousands or millions of certificates. The CLM market is already experiencing rapid growth, expanding from $3.73 billion in 2023 to an estimated $4.42 billion in 2024. Key drivers include rising concerns over data security, increasing cloud, container and IoT adoption, regulatory compliance, and the growing need for automation.

Organizations relying on manual processes for certificate management face increased operational costs and higher risks of outages with the new 90-day validity requirement. For enterprises, automation isn’t just a solution—it’s essential.

Google 90-Day TLS Proposal – Impact on Organizations

Outages related to expired TLS certificates can be painful and expensive. The cost of an outage can be upwards of $100,000. This can have a cascading effect that not only includes extended IT hours required to restore services, but also lost productivity that translates into lost revenue.

For organizations managing thousands of digital certificates across their hybrid cloud and edge Infrastructure, this policy change is likely to have a significant impact in terms of their overall certificate management processes and security posture. With a 90-day TLS validity period, IT and security teams will have a major task on their hands to handle more frequent certificate renewals throughout the year. The problem especially compounds for organizations who are still dealing with manual certificate management processes, with high OPEX and mean time to repair (MTTR).

Certificate Lifecycle Management with Visibility, Control and Insights – All in One Place

The Role of AI in Cybersecurity

The full potential of AI is now becoming a reality with the widespread availability of tools like generative AI. As it gains mainstream adoption, the shift towards cybersecurity vendors integrating AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) is becoming increasingly evident. We are on the brink of a major transformation, where the long hours of manual vulnerability and threat management will soon be replaced by AI resolving issues within seconds.

AI is proving to be a game-changer in cybersecurity, enabling organizations to move from a reactive stance to a proactive approach for vulnerability management, threat detection and mitigation. Unlike traditional methods that rely on manual workflows and preset rules, AI-powered tools can analyze vast datasets in real time, uncover patterns, predict risks, and address threats before they cause harm.

In the Machine Identity and Non-Human Identity (NHI) space, AI-driven automation offers a streamlined solution for handling the provisioning and frequent renewal of certificates, keys, API tokens, and more. By automating the entire certificate lifecycle process—from discovery and issuance to provisioning and renewal—AI significantly reduces human error and lowers operational costs.

2024 ESG Report: Managing Non-human Identities for an Effective Cybersecurity Program

Leveraging AI in the World of MSPs and MSSPs

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) stand to gain significant advantages by incorporating AI into CLM, PKI, and IoT security processes. AI enables these service providers to:

  1. Enhance Efficiency with Automation: AI-guided remediation can automate certificate lifecycle management tasks, from tracking expiry dates to issuing and deploying certificates, dramatically reducing manual efforts, errors, and operational costs.
  2. Predict Threats and Prevent Outages: AI can analyze historical data to detect anomalies, predict certificate expirations, and initiate preventive measures, helping MSPs/MSSPs avoid costly outages and reduce MTTR.
  3. Support Post-Quantum Cryptography: As post-quantum cryptography (PQC) becomes critical, MSPs and MSSPs can leverage AI to ensure seamless transitions to quantum-resistant PKI algorithms, keeping ahead of emerging security threats.
  4. Manage Massive Certificate Volumes: With Google’s 90-day TLS proposal and the rapid expansion of machine and non-human identities, managing certificates at scale becomes an overwhelming task. AI can help MSPs and MSSPs automate certificate renewals, domain re-validations, and vulnerability management, ensuring compliance and minimizing risk.

By deploying AI-driven solutions, MSPs and MSSPs can not only meet their clients’ growing security needs, but also position themselves as forward-thinking, agile service providers.

The Impact of AI on PKI – Unify Teams and Rapid Remediation

PKI-based digital certificates are key enablers of Internet security and digital transformation. Managing them efficiently is critical to ensure your infrastructure and applications remain protected while your business thrives in the digital realm.

As the number of digital certificates grows, identity-based threats will grow more prevalent if these certificates are not properly managed. Becoming crypto-agile is essential to protecting the enterprise against these threats, including post-quantum cryptography. With the Google’s 90-Day TLS proposal, organizations will have to deal with numerous renewals, automated processes, and a lot of repetitive tasks.

This is where AI guided automation and remediation can play a crucial role where large sets of data need to be processed in real time, involving cross-functional tools and teams, system of records (Devices, Users, Certificates & Keys, vulnerabilities, misconfigurations), and common design patterns. One of the primary challenges in implementing AI in cybersecurity is data acquisition and evaluation. Processing large-scale data, accurately and contextually; and training the AI models becomes critical. Good data is crucial in cybersecurity for several reasons. Imagine cybersecurity products having an interface where end users can interact with the product in an intuitive and human-like manner. This enhances tasks, like vulnerability, anomaly detection, and auto remediation, and can greatly help simplify the certificate lifecycle management processes including discovery, enrollment, provisioning, renewals, and revocations.

When it comes to frequent renewals, automating the entire process, from tracking certificates impending expiry to notifying the right people, getting the certificate issued, and provisioning it to the right end point is the only viable solution. AI-guided remediation can dramatically reduce the amount of time and manual effort otherwise required to complete the task.

With AI, the ability to process, predict and understand context and trends around use cases and design patterns, removes the need for possible human intervention, aids in better decision making, improves productivity, reduces costs, and significantly reduces the risk of outages and data breaches. AI assists and guides teams with clear, concise instructions on how to complete the fix. AI-guided remediation can expedite resolution of expired certificates and keys, vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, while also fostering collaboration between Application, DevOps and PKI teams, to reduce MTTR for security teams and minimizes risk exposure.

The power of AI can be transformative for cybersecurity teams. It can be utilized for both offensive and defensive strategies. The real power of AI will depend on its application, accuracy, and the quality of data it processes. As MSPs and MSSPs begin to harness the power of AI, they will unlock new efficiencies, reduce risk, and remain competitive in an increasingly complex digital landscape. The shift to AI-driven cybersecurity strategies is inevitable, and those who adopt early will be best positioned to navigate future challenges.

To learn more about automated certificate lifecycle management, request a demo of the AVX ONE Platform today.

Tags

  • AI
  • certificate lifecycle management (CLM)
  • Certificate Outage
  • Cybersecurity
  • machine identity management
  • Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs)
  • Managed Service Providers (MSPs)
  • non-human identity
  • PKI
  • Post-quantum cryptography (PQC)
  • tls certificates

About the Author

Karthik Kannan

VP Product & Consulting | MSSP & GSI Partnerships

VP - Product Management at AppViewX heading Automation and Low Code Suite. Oversee product lifecycle: vision > concept > ideation > design > launch.

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Aditya Gupta

Cyber Security Leader

Aditya Gupta is a cybersecurity leader with over 21 years of experience in developing and implementing strategies to manage risks and safeguard organizational assets. He has led global cybersecurity transformations across diverse domains. Aditya holds an MBA from FMS Delhi and is an engineer by education, with certifications including CISSP, CCSP, CCNA, and OCI Security Professional. He actively contributes to cybersecurity development and serves on panels such as ISC2’s Unified Body of Knowledge (UBK) Content Advisory Panel and volunteered for ISC2 Exam Development.

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