Topic starter
24/06/2026 11:24 pm
TL;DR: 23.53% still manage certificates with manual effort, a DigiCert survey found, showing the gap in certificate operations is still operational rather than theoretical. Certificate renewal and ownership need automation, or shorter lifespans will keep turning routine trust work into exception handling.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by DigiCert: “DigiCert Unveils 2025 Security Predictions”.
By the numbers:
- 23.53% of respondents said certificates are managed via manual effort such as spreadsheets.
Key questions
Q: When should organisations prioritise crypto-agility over a full algorithm swap?
A: They should prioritise crypto-agility whenever their estate includes many dependent applications, vendors, or certificate chains, because replacement will be slower than a simple technology refresh.
Q: How should security teams respond to AI-generated phishing campaigns?
A: Security teams should assume the message quality will be good enough to fool users and focus on reducing what a successful click can do.
Q: What breaks when certificate management still depends on spreadsheets?
A: Spreadsheets can track data, but they cannot execute the renewal process or enforce accountability.
Practitioner guidance
- Automate certificate ownership and renewal Build a complete inventory of public and private certificates, map each one to an owner, and eliminate renewal workflows that depend on calendar reminders or manual spreadsheets.
- Identify where cryptography is hard-coded Review applications, trust stores and platform dependencies for embedded algorithms and libraries that cannot change without code modification, then rank them for crypto-agility remediation.
- Harden human identity flows against AI phishing Prioritise phishing-resistant authentication for access paths where a convincing impersonation could lead to privileged approval, account recovery or session takeover.
Bottom line: The article's central risk is not any single prediction, but the convergence of shorter certificate lifespans, PQC change and AI-enabled deception into a faster trust environment.
Glossary terms: Crypto-Agility, Certificate Lifecycle Management, Content Provenance, Cryptographic Bill of Materials
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This topic was modified 1 day ago by NHI Mgmt Group
25/06/2026 8:16 am
Trust automation is now an identity governance requirement, not an efficiency preference. DigiCert's forecast shows certificate lifecycles, trust policy and provenance checks moving faster than manual control loops can absorb. The implication is that identity programmes must stop treating certificates as isolated infrastructure artefacts and start governing them as part of the broader identity plane.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How do teams know whether trust automation is actually working?
A: They should measure renewal success rates, expiry exceptions, revocation latency, and the percentage of certificates still handled manually. If those signals are not improving, the programme is still exposed to the same lifecycle failures it was meant to remove.
👉 Read our full editorial: Trust automation is the practical response to shorter certificate lifespans
This post was modified 1 day ago by NHI Mgmt Group