In a world increasingly defined by remote work, cloud expansion, and heightened security threats, traditional access controls are falling short. One of the most underappreciated vulnerabilities lurking in enterprise IT environments is the misuse and mismanagement of SSH keys. In a recent session, I laid out the hidden risks of unmanaged keys and the urgent case for moving toward keyless, certificate-based access.
To hear more of this story in detail, I encourage you to listen to the full webinar in which I give a demo of our powerful key management tool.
Once upon a time, IT environments were centralized, identities were easy to track, and access management could be handled with a one-size-fits-all approach like Active Directory. Fast forward to today: hybrid cloud infrastructures, SaaS applications, and global remote work have shattered those boundaries. Now, privileges are fragmented, difficult to manage, and represent a sprawling attack surface.
SSH keys - essential for automation and remote access - have proliferated in this environment. But they often remain unmanaged, invisible, and dangerously static. Deleting just one key might disrupt countless critical operations. Worse, traditional Privileged Access Management (PAM) tools aren’t built to discover or monitor these keys effectively.
Even companies with robust PAM solutions in place face problems. SSH keys can create backdoors that bypass PAM entirely, allowing users to drop their own keys on servers and gain standing access with no oversight. In one real-world example, a large financial institution had stringent key policies but lacked the tools to enforce them. Users were able to alter key restrictions without detection - turning secure environments into uncontrolled access webs.
In another case, a national retail chain suffered a breach. During the forensic investigation, a single SSH key was found to grant root access to most of their critical production servers. And what’s even worse, they had no idea who had copies of the private key. Though not directly tied to the breach, this “shared key” setup exemplified how keys can become a massive liability over time.
Why Are SSH Keys So Dangerous?
SSH keys are just long strings of text stored in files. They’re hard to track, hard to audit, and nearly impossible to distinguish without specialized tools. They create trust chains across systems - connections that can allow attackers to move laterally and escalate privileges unnoticed. Without fingerprinting, policy enforcement, and visibility, organizations are left in the dark.
The Road to Keyless: Visibility, Policy, and Certificates
To overcome these challenges, IT teams need to start with comprehensive discovery. First, they need to scan the environment using the SSH protocol itself, collecting data on users, key files, servers, and configurations. Once visibility is established, policies based on frameworks like NIST or PCI-DSS should be applied to identify violations.
From there, the process moves to remediation, policy enforcement, and finally automation - putting guardrails in place for lifecycle management of keys. But the ultimate step is migrating from keys to ephemeral, just-in-time certificates.
Certificates solve the fundamental challenges of SSH keys. They are centrally issued, expire within minutes, and leave no persistent credentials behind. They support zero-trust principles by authenticating identities only for specific, time-bound roles and activities. Even if a certificate leaks, it’s useless after expiration - unlike an SSH key, which can silently provide access for years.
Perhaps the most powerful feature of this migration strategy is that it’s non-disruptive. Applications and scripts can continue using their existing SSH clients and keys. Behind the scenes, however, connections are redirected through a bastion that issues time-limited certificates, enforcing control without rewriting code or re-architecting workflows.
It’s not just about being passwordless - it’s about being keyless too. Our approach enables organizations to embrace a secure, zero-trust future without compromising operational continuity.
To hear more of this story in detail, I encourage to listen to the full webinar in which I give a demo of our powerful discovery tool.
To learn more about our PrivX Key Manager solution, and how it enables you on your path Beyond Keyless, please visit our product page >>>