The Ponemon Institute’s 2021 PKI & IoT Trends Study is out – and we see some interesting themes in the responses.

Before jumping into those details, a bit of background on the study. In its 7th year, this global study spans 17 countries including Australia, Brazil, France, Japan, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States. There were over 2,500 IT and IT security professionals who responded to the survey, all of whom are either involved in the management of their organizations’ enterprise PKI or in developing or managing applications that depend upon credentials controlled by their organizations’ PKI.

The study made it clear that PKI has never been in such high demand – whether from the pressure of securing a remote/hybrid workforce this past year, or continuing trends like IoT and cloud-based services. But the study also highlighted some big challenges, one being the skills and resources shortage – which has never been worse.

Here are just a few highlights from the study:

  • No clear ownership is the top challenge for the seventh year in a row. When it comes to managing and deploying PKI, not only did this come in first at 71%, but insufficient resources (51%) and insufficient skills (46%) rounded out the top 3.
  • Organizations are issuing and managing more certificates than ever. Year to year, there has been a slow and steady increase in the number of certificates organizations said they were issuing and managing, until last year when we saw a significant spike. That increase has continued – 50% percent to be exact – comparing this years’ numbers to 2019.
  • IoT is top trend driving the deployment of applications using PKI for the second year in a row. But concerningly, respondents said IoT is the area expected to experience the most change and uncertainty.

So all this begs the question, is your PKI prepared to realize the possibilities of a connected world?

Download the study to read about all the trends that came out this year in relation to PKI and IoT.