What are SSH Certificates? How are They Different Than SSH Keys?

Did you know that SSH is oftentimes the most vulnerable point in your entire infrastructure? Tatu Ylonen, the inventor of SSH, has said that he has seen between 50 and 200 keys per server, with a whopping 90% of them being unused. All this does is allow bad actors to discover one of these unused keys and use it to gain access to endpoints, much like what happened to Cisco in 2018.

The Benefits of Using SSH Certificates:

1) Just 1 key needs to be added per server.

2) The user’s SSH keys now have a set expiration date.

3) The certificate authority can provide JEA to the user every time that the user requests access.

4) It is markedly easier to associate each key with its respective owner.

5) If short term certificates are used, then organizations have reduced exposure to SSH key theft brought about by SSH key mismanagement.

6) User onboarding goes by much faster.

Learn more about the basics of modern, secure, zero-trust authentication in this brief explainer video about secure access with SSH certificates.

Read more about SSH Certificates over at our blog: https://www.keytos.io/blog/passwordle...

#SSH #pki #passwordless #authentication