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Topic starter
12/07/2026 12:16 pm
TL;DR: Government agencies are under pressure to secure digital identities, encrypt communications, and manage certificates at scale, and managed PKI centralises issuance, renewal, revocation, and key handling to reduce operational burden, according to eMudhra. The governance issue is not convenience but control ownership, because certificate lifecycle failures still become identity and data protection failures.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by eMudhra: Managed PKI Solutions for Government Agencies
By the numbers:
- 96% of organisations store secrets outside of secrets managers in vulnerable locations including code, config files, and CI/CD tools.
- Only 20% have formal processes for offboarding and revoking API keys, and even fewer have procedures for rotating them.
- 73% of vaults are misconfigured, leading to unauthorised access and exposure of sensitive data.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should government agencies manage certificate lifecycle risk in a managed PKI model?
A: Government agencies should treat certificate lifecycle management as an identity control, not an infrastructure task.
Q: Why do certificates create identity governance risk when they are not revoked quickly?
A: Certificates create risk because they act as credentials for systems and services.
Q: What do security teams get wrong about PKI for connected devices?
A: Teams often assume certificates solve trust on their own.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory every certificate by owner and business function Build a certificate register that records the service, system, or team responsible for each certificate, plus expiry, renewal method, and revocation path.
- Tie issuance and revocation to identity lifecycle events Connect certificate creation, renewal, and revocation to joiner, mover, and leaver workflows so certificates are not left active after a service is retired or replatformed.
- Validate revocation checking across all consuming applications Confirm that applications, gateways, and signing workflows actually consult CRL or OCSP status before trusting a certificate.
What's in the full article
eMudhra's full blog covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Step-by-step explanation of managed certificate issuance, renewal, and revocation workflows for government environments
- Provider-side key storage, escrow, and recovery handling that implementation teams need before deployment
- Practical deployment considerations for integrating managed PKI with legacy systems and third-party applications
- Compliance-oriented implementation points for government teams aligning PKI operations with audit requirements
👉 Read eMudhra's guide to managed PKI for government data protection →
Managed PKI for government agencies: is certificate governance easier now?
Explore further
12/07/2026 12:30 pm
Managed PKI is a machine identity governance decision, not just a procurement decision. The article frames certificates as a technical trust layer, but the operational reality is that every certificate is a credential with lifecycle, ownership, and revocation requirements. That makes this topic directly relevant to NHI governance, where the control problem is maintaining accountability for secrets that authenticate systems rather than people. Practitioners should evaluate managed PKI as a governance boundary, not a convenience layer.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 96% of organisations store secrets outside of secrets managers in vulnerable locations including code, config files, and CI/CD tools, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- 79% of organisations have experienced secrets leaks, and 77% of these incidents resulted in tangible damage, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Which frameworks are most relevant to certificate governance and trust management?
A: NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0, NIST SP 800-53, and NIST Zero Trust architecture are all relevant because they connect identity assurance, access control, and ongoing verification. For government environments, those frameworks help align certificate governance with auditability, least privilege, and secure trust lifecycle management.
👉 Read our full editorial: Managed PKI in government: what it changes for certificate governance
