u-blox IoT certificate manager

u-blox has announced the IoT certificate manager, a security service that continuously renews device credentials in fully automated mode. Together with the company’s existing zero-touch provisioning service, it provides out-of-the-box onboarding to IoT cloud platforms with total control of the device certificate life cycle.

Certificate life cycle control targets IoT devices that integrate with IoT cloud platforms including the AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub and DPS services. While these take charge of device management and data aggregation, the u-blox service provides an effortless and secure way to manage the X.509 certificates required for device authentication.

Certificate management efforts grow exponentially with increasing fleet size. While in the past issued certificates remained valid throughout a device’s life cycle, increases in infrastructure complexity and risks have forced regulatory authorities to demand more frequent renewals. Failure to meet renewal deadlines can expose devices to cyber threats, disrupt service availability and undermine business.

The IoT certificate manager eliminates the task of manually managing credential renewal on thousands of devices. Designed and optimised for IoT scenarios, it eliminates the errors that can occur during manual operation on large IoT deployments, freeing resources for other activities. Delivery via the intuitive Thingstream IoT service delivery platform, with its simple and flexible price plans, enables users to reduce time to market.

The certificate manager futureproofs protection by increasing security levels over the entire device lifetime. Building on the root of trust included in u-blox SARA-R5 series LTE-M cellular modems, it provides a fully integrated silicon-to-cloud security solution. It enables IoT solution developers to easily manage device credentials for an IoT lifetime, to scale seamlessly from prototyping to huge fleets, and to minimise set-up costs.