DigiCert Security Summit is an annual gathering of the industry’s leading innovators and professionals to discuss the latest threats and best practices in digital security. In our seven years of Security Summit, 2021 was our first ever all-virtual event.

However, being virtual did not stop us from having fantastic discussions and important trainings and resources, nor did the pandemic slow down our progress over the last year. As Channel Futures put it, “Tuesday’s virtual DigiCert Security Summit highlighted a year of strong growth despite challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Security Summit 2021 theme was “Level Up” because in 2021 it’s time to level up your digital security using automation and modern PKI solutions. Although security isn’t a game, you do need to level up your skills, knowledge and technology to defeat evolving threats. Check out the Summit intro video to see the progression of continuously leveling up your game to overcome increasingly difficult threats.

Announcing Automation Manager

In the spirit of leveling up, we unveiled our new DigiCert® Automation Manager, a containerized enterprise solution for on-premises, high-volume TLS certificate automation, at Security Summit. Automation Manager is another addition to DigiCert’s industry-leading platform, DigiCert ONE™, built on a modern, cloud-native architecture that allows for flexibility and secure automation behind the enterprise network firewall. Automation Manager paves the way for secure, complete certificate management behind the firewall and on-premises to complement DigiCert’s current cloud offerings. The release of Automation Manager at Security Summit is the first of more solutions on DigiCert’s automation vision to come.

Replay available on-demand

Close to 650 attendees from over 420 companies participated live this year, and with over 20 different breakout sessions and trainings, there was something for everyone. If you weren’t able to view sessions during Summit, you can still view them on-demand: simply register by May 7 and you will receive an email with instructions on how to create an account and access the sessions.

Top 3 sessions

We’ve also pulled together the most popular sessions from this year. Notably, for the first time we had Brian Krebs join us for the opening session. Krebs is an independent investigative reporter and leading cybercrime journalist at the award-winning KrebsOnSecurity.com. Unfortunately, Krebs’s interview is exclusive to attendees who viewed it live. Contact events@digicert.com if you have questions about what he covered.

The other most popular sessions this year were:

• TLS/SSL Automation: Ready for Anything: In this session, attendees learned how automation makes your security posture more agile today and in the future. This session includes tutorials and how-to advice for setting up automation and integrations.
• Post-Quantum Crypto Discussion: NIST’s third round finalists and what it means for the industry: This was a moderated discussion with Mike Brown from ISARA, Bob Burns from The Thales Group, and Brian Trzupek and Avesta Hojjati from DigiCert. Hear industry leaders in quantum-cryptography discuss being part of NIST’s third round and shed light on the challenges and opportunities involved in developing advanced quantum-safe digital certificates and secure key management for connected devices. As both ISARA and Thales are contributing to third-round candidates, DigiCert is proud to partner with and currently use and test these two algorithms and discuss the implications for our customers.
• SolarWinds: A Cautionary Tale About Code Signing Theory and Practice: Check out this conversation about the 2019-2020 government data breaches resulting from vulnerabilities in SolarWinds’ Orion software.

Recommendations for further viewing

If you’d like to dive even deeper, we recommend also checking out the following breakout sessions:

• Scaling PKI and IoT with Confidence: Solving Challenges and Closing Off Vulnerabilities: A moderated discussion on authentication, confidentiality, data integrity and adoption challenges in the broad world of PKI and IoT. During this conversation, you'll hear insights and perspectives from leading IoT podcaster Stacey Higginbotham, Jason Christman from Johnson Controls, as well as Inhel Rekik from BD and Vijay Lakamraju from Otis Elevators.
• European Identity Initiative: A Deeper Look at Security and the Role of PKI: Join DigiCert’s Dean Coclin and Brian Honan, an expert on cybersecurity and data protection with BH Consulting, to discuss definitions and standards of identity management and security are not uniform around the world. This session compares different variations, including the European Identity Initiative, highlights trends, and explores how we might approach certificate and security management from a more global standpoint.

To replay these sessions: visit the event site at https://www.digicert.com/about/events/2022-security-summit-video-landing-page

What did we learn, and what can we do with the knowledge?

At Summit, we emphasized that you cannot stay stagnant when it comes to digital security. You have to continually progress your skills, technologies and practices to be prepared for ever-evolving threats like post quantum computing, which could be here sooner than we think. SolarWinds is a perfect example of what happens when companies do not evolve their security practices. Above all, we learned that automation is the security solution for now and the future. If you haven’t already, it’s time to level up your security management with automation.

Read more about the 2021 DigiCert Security Summit in Channel Futures and Enterprise Times, or search #DigiCertSummit21 on Twitter. If you have any questions about DigiCert Security Summit or want to know how to get involved next year, reach out to events@digicert.com. We’ll see you next year!