Bringing More Digital Trust to Online Connections

World Internet Day takes place on Oct. 29 each year, and it’s a reminder of how far we’ve come since the early days. Additionally, as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month draws to a close, it’s a good reminder to look back at how much digital transformation has changed our connected world.

On Oct. 29, 1969, the first internet connection was made by grad students at UCLA. In 2005, World Internet Day was started to mark one of the most impactful inventions in human history. Nowadays, digital transformation has accelerated the need to secure every digital interaction, from connected devices to digital documents to code and more. In the past 50 years, the internet has changed drastically and in today’s environment, digital trust is essential.

From then to now

In the early days, it was simpler to trust connections because there were fewer of them, and fewer threats. Back then, digital trust centered on interactions between users and websites secured by public key infrastructure (PKI), a technology that delivers authentication, encryption, and integrity to a digital interaction. 

But in the modern world where everything is connected, the use cases for PKI have expanded to include software, servers, devices, documents and more. In 2021, there were over 13.8 billion connected endpoints and experts estimate that 175 zettabytes of data will be produced by 2025.

How can we have a safer internet?

Today, digital trust is still an essential requirement of online operations. Digital trust is what enables individuals and businesses to engage online with confidence that their footprint in a digital world is secure.

The delivery of digital trust in our connected world hinges on four key elements:

• Industry and technology standards that define what constitutes trust
• Compliance and operations that govern delivery of trust
• Public and private certificate lifecycle management through software that provides an organization with unified trust management for digital certificate lifecycles
• Extension of trust through ecosystems, such as across device lifecycles, software supply chains, consortiums and more
  

Learn more about digital trust at https://www.digicert.com/blog/category/digital-trust.

Individuals can also follow best practices that the CISA recommends to improve their online security, including avoiding phishing, creating strong passwords, keeping software updated and using multi-factor authentication (MFA).