Swiss firm U-Blox has launched a scalable digital certificate management system for IoT devices. It automatically renews device credentials according to industry requirements to ensure protection.

The IoT certificate manager is a security service that continuously renews device credentials in a fully automated mode. Together with the company’s existing zero touch provisioning service, it provides out-of-the-box on-boarding to IoT cloud platforms with total control of the device certificate lifecycle.

Certificate lifecycle 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 a secure and cost-effective way to manage the X.509 certificates required for device authentication.

X.509 certificates have become a cornerstone of IoT security. Secure provisioning requires experience, complex software development and robust production line tools and processes.

Certificate management efforts grow exponentially with increasing fleet size. While in the past, issued certificates remained valid throughout a device’s lifecycle, increases in infrastructure complexity and risks have forced regulatory authorities to demand more frequent – yearly or monthly – 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 Thingstream IoT service delivery platform with its simple and flexible price plans lets users engage more efficiently and reduce time to market.

The IoT certificate manager futureproofs protection by increasing security levels over the entire device lifetime. Building on the root of trust included in the U-Blox Sara-R5 series of LTE-M cellular modems, it provides integrated silicon-to-cloud security.

“IoT certificate manager is all about enabling IoT developers to easily manage device credentials for an IoT lifetime, to scale seamlessly from prototyping to huge fleets, and to minimise set-up costs, giving companies more time and resources to grow their business,” said Giovanni Solito, senior product manager at U-Blox.

Zero touch provisioning and IoT certificate manager services are available immediately.

With headquarters in Thalwil, Switzerland, U-Blox has offices in Europe, Asia and the USA.