Ubiquitous connectivity, mobility, and cloud computing are driving the growth of digital business and the development of disruptive business models across all industries. As a result, data volumes are skyrocketing, and traditional security perimeters are evaporating at a record pace. The need to evolve from a tactical to a strategic view of digital trust is at the heart of this transformation to digital business. According to Gartner:

• By 2025, 20% of digital businesses with strong digital trust strategies will grow at double the percentage rate of those with poor digital trust efforts. (How to Manage New Trust Issues for Brands in Digital Business 24 May 17)
• By 2020, companies that are digitally trustworthy will generate 20% more online profit than those that are not. (The Gartner Digital Commerce Vendor Guide, 2017 11 Jul 17)

To prepare for these challenges, an increasing number of businesses are deploying public key infrastructures (PKIs) to secure the expanding ecosystem of users, devices, applications, and things. A PKI supports the distribution and identification of public encryption keys, enabling users and computers to securely exchange data over public networks like the Internet. Already an established and proven technology, PKI is even more relevant today as the need to securely authenticate a growing digital ecosystem continues to grow.

Three popular PKI vendors are Entrust Inc., VeriSign Inc. and RSA Security, now owned by EMC Corp.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: You are a security engineer for a company of 1,000 employees. Your boss has asked you what you need to consider to implement a PKI at your company. He has heard that PKI comes with Windows Server. What are the benefits of purchasing a PKI system from one of the top vendors?

Respond with a 100-150 word post and reply to 2 classmates with a quality question for full credit.