The Cryptography, Data Protection and Identity Security Center of Excellence
Private & Secure PKI, Streamlined & Trouble-free
Cloud-Based PKI Protects & Enables Your Distributed
Teams, Networks, and Devices
PKI as a Service (PKIaaS) Solution Brief
PKI as a Service (PKIaaS) Solution Brief
Download Solution Brief Here
Legacy on-premises PKI — particularly aging Microsoft ADCS environments — was built for an era of fewer machines, longer certificate lifetimes, and stable cryptographic algorithms. That era has ended. Machine identities now outnumber human identities 109 to 1, post-quantum migration deadlines are approaching for regulated industries, and the cryptographic infrastructure underneath it all has to change faster than self-built PKI can manage. PKI as a Service (PKIaaS) is a cloud-based delivery model that provides fully managed key management, private certificate issuance, lifecycle automation, and cryptographic policy enforcement — without maintaining on-premises PKI. This brief explains where PKIaaS fits, how to migrate to it safely, and how Accutive Security delivers platform-agnostic implementation and managed services across leading platforms including Keyfactor, AppViewX, Palo Alto Networks NGTS, DigiCert, Entrust, and HID.
- The forces making legacy PKI unsustainable: infrastructure burden, machine identity scale, post-quantum readiness, multi-cloud trust, and the PKI expertise gap
- A side-by-side comparison of legacy on-premises PKI and PKIaaS across deployment, scalability, automation, resilience, and crypto-agility
- Hybrid architecture that keeps your Root CA offline and on-premises (FIPS 140-3 Level 3 HSM) while moving Issuing CAs and operations to the cloud
- Accutive Security's platform-agnostic selection approach and five-phase migration path — from discovery through legacy PKI decommissioning
- The shared responsibility model, and where managed services close the governance gap the platform leaves open
- Seven questions to ask before selecting a PKIaaS platform — covering key control, PQC roadmap, automation depth, SLAs, and CLM
- How PKIaaS, paired with Accutive Security, advances organizations from PKI Maturity Level 2 to Level 4/5