The truth is, very few people understand public key infrastructure (PKI). Even IT professionals have problems evaluating what’s important and what’s not when it comes to PKI.

“The problem with PKI is that it really is complicated,” said John O’Leary, director of education for the Computer Security Institute and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional. “Everything you see that’s from vendors says, ‘Oh, it will simplify things’ and it’s not simple.”

But that’s small comfort for the IT professional charged with implementing PKI.

To help you, we asked PKI experts from Gartner, the Aberdeen Group, and the Computer Security Institute what questions companies should be asking PKI vendors. Download this checklist as a starting point when researching PKI solutions.
E-mail us your suggestions for implementing PKI or post a comment.