TLS (Transport Layer Security) expert, Scott Helme issued a new report that assesses the top one million sites and how they utilize encryption (the study took into account the last six months). The same study shows that it would be better if the processes of regulating machine identities get automated in highly-complex cloud environments.
The report states that while certain sections have witnessed some improvements in said regard, more work needs to be done if machine identities are to be utilized in a proper way to safeguard the online community.
For starters, the use of TLSv1.3 has gone up (now found in almost five out of 10 sites) over the last six months, unlike v1.2 (decline of 13%). Cloud migration and worldwide digital transformation should be credited for such widespread adoption of v1.3
It should be noted that even though companies are opting for stronger TLS protocols, many aren’t complementing this move by opting for stronger keys for TLS machine identities.
It’s also interesting that industry-grade ECDSA keys are now found in almost 20% of websites. What’s alarming is that almost 40% of the top one million sites are still relying on RSA keys, which don’t offer much security against the evolving risks.
It’s also slightly disappointing that no significant growth in the adoption of HTTPS (72%) has been observed in the last six months.
Helme commented that it’s “disheartening” to see organizations not doing much as cybercriminals continue to up their game.
However, not everything is bad in the world. First of all, research findings clearly suggest that companies are putting in extra work to control their machine identity environments. Additionally, during the last six months, a 13% growth has been recorded in the number of websites utilizing Certificate Authority Authorization (CAA), which should tell us that companies realize how crucial machine identities are when it comes to overall security.
Kevin Bocek (Vice President, Security Strategy & Threat Intelligence · Venafi) believes that to safeguard communication between clouds, devices, software, etc, amid the ongoing rise in popularity of cloud migration, every business requires multiple additional TLS machine identities
Read next: Here’s How the Cybersecurity Landscape Might Look By 2025 According Gartner’s New Report
The report states that while certain sections have witnessed some improvements in said regard, more work needs to be done if machine identities are to be utilized in a proper way to safeguard the online community.
For starters, the use of TLSv1.3 has gone up (now found in almost five out of 10 sites) over the last six months, unlike v1.2 (decline of 13%). Cloud migration and worldwide digital transformation should be credited for such widespread adoption of v1.3
It should be noted that even though companies are opting for stronger TLS protocols, many aren’t complementing this move by opting for stronger keys for TLS machine identities.
It’s also interesting that industry-grade ECDSA keys are now found in almost 20% of websites. What’s alarming is that almost 40% of the top one million sites are still relying on RSA keys, which don’t offer much security against the evolving risks.
It’s also slightly disappointing that no significant growth in the adoption of HTTPS (72%) has been observed in the last six months.
Helme commented that it’s “disheartening” to see organizations not doing much as cybercriminals continue to up their game.
However, not everything is bad in the world. First of all, research findings clearly suggest that companies are putting in extra work to control their machine identity environments. Additionally, during the last six months, a 13% growth has been recorded in the number of websites utilizing Certificate Authority Authorization (CAA), which should tell us that companies realize how crucial machine identities are when it comes to overall security.
Kevin Bocek (Vice President, Security Strategy & Threat Intelligence · Venafi) believes that to safeguard communication between clouds, devices, software, etc, amid the ongoing rise in popularity of cloud migration, every business requires multiple additional TLS machine identities
Read next: Here’s How the Cybersecurity Landscape Might Look By 2025 According Gartner’s New Report
