Topic starter
25/06/2026 2:56 pm
TL;DR: Zero trust is presented as the access-verification model that helps create digital trust by requiring every request to be authenticated with controls such as PKI, MFA, and SSO, according to DigiCert. The governance lesson is that trust now depends on continuous verification across users, devices, software, and documents, not on perimeter assumptions.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by DigiCert: “How Zero Trust Can Enable Digital Trust”.
By the numbers:
- 96% of IT security executives believe that PKI is essential to building a zero-trust architecture.
Key questions
A: Organisations should treat identity governance and administration as a control plane for access decisions, not just a compliance layer.
Q: Why do PKI and certificate management matter to zero trust programmes?
A: Because certificates are part of the proof that a user, device or service is legitimate, and they also protect the communications that carry that proof.
Q: What breaks when organisations keep using perimeter-era trust assumptions?
A: Trust becomes location-based instead of identity-based, which creates blind spots across remote work, cloud services and connected devices.
Practitioner guidance
- Map trust decisions across actor types Document where humans, service accounts, devices, software and documents enter trust decisions, then align the control owner for each path.
- Treat PKI as identity infrastructure Place certificate issuance, renewal, revocation and validation under the same governance discipline used for other identity credentials.
- Replace network-based trust assumptions Remove policies that grant confidence because a request came from a known IP range, subnet or internal location.
Bottom line: Digital trust depends on continuous verification, not on inherited confidence from a network boundary or a one-time login.
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25/06/2026 4:10 pm
Digital trust is becoming an identity governance outcome, not a branding term. The article is correct to tie digital trust to zero trust because trust now depends on continuously verifiable identity signals across humans, machines and content. That means IAM and NHI governance teams should stop treating trust as a static state and manage it as an enforced verification pattern across every access path.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 90% of IT leaders say properly managing NHIs is essential for a successful zero-trust implementation, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who should own zero trust and digital trust governance?
A: Ownership should sit across identity security, infrastructure, and risk, with clear accountability for the trust controls that span them. Human IAM, NHI governance, and certificate lifecycle management cannot be governed as separate programmes if the business relies on a single trust posture. Shared accountability is the only durable model.
👉 Read our full editorial: Zero trust as the operating model for digital trust