Implementing Public Key Infrastructures or PKI in Operational Technology (OT) environments can introduce unique operational challenges, not least because these types of environments are undergoing a rapid transformation as industrial systems become increasingly connected to enterprise networks, cloud platforms, and Industrial IoT ecosystems. To help navigate this challenging landscape IN Groupe, now also incorporating Nexus, has produced a technical white paper on the subject.
Increased connectivity within an OT environment brings many advantages such as enabling new capabilities such as predictive maintenance, remote operation, and data-driven optimisation. Although, at the same time, it significantly expands the cyber attack surface of industrial systems.
A fundamental requirement for securing connected industrial environments is the ability to establish trusted machine identities for devices, applications, and services. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) provides the cryptographic foundation for these identities by issuing digital certificates that enable authentication, encrypted communication, and data integrity. Certificates allow industrial systems to verify the identity of communication partners before exchanging sensitive operational data.
However, implementing PKI in OT environments introduces unique operational challenges. Industrial deployments often include large and heterogeneous device fleets, long equipment lifecycles, limited connectivity, and strict availability requirements. Traditional manual certificate management processes cannot scale to such environments. As a result, automated certificate lifecycle management has become a critical component of modern OT security architectures. Automation mechanisms enable organizations to provision, renew, and revoke certificates at scale while maintaining consistent security policies across distributed systems.
The new technical white paper from IN Group explores the following:
● The role of certificate automation in OT environments
● Challenges of deploying PKI in industrial systems
● Security mechanisms provided by OPC UA
● How the Global Discovery Server (GDS) enables automated certificate lifecycle management
● Approaches for integrating OT PKI with enterprise IT PKI while meeting regulatory and operational requirements
