With over 20 years of global experience, Tarun Srivastava's PKI journey began with the Root CA of India, giving him unparalleled insights into country-level PKI. Since then, he has contributed to the PKI evolution within the region, significantly impacting Asia's unique digital landscape. In this interview, we sit down with Tarun to understand how Nexus Smart ID PKI helps promote digital trust across industries.
Secure and trusted identities are a necessity of our digital world. Nexus' identity management solutions are designed to meet this critical need. "Nexus issues, manages, and utilizes trusted identities for the workforce, workplace, and the Internet of Things (IoT)," explains Tarun Srivastava, a Nexus PKI expert.
"Our unique value lies in the fact that our solution caters to all three types of identities, which allows organizations to manage visual, digital, and physical identities from a single platform," he adds. This comprehensive approach ensures that every aspect of identity, whether a digital signature or a physical access card, is seamlessly integrated and secure.
PKI: what's it for?
No sector has remained untouched by the wave of digitization and IoT adoption. Owing to this transformation, Smart ID PKI has been adopted by diverse sectors with just as diverse needs. "For example, for the Manufacturing sector, our PKI solutions secure communication between IoT-enabled machines, while in the Energy segment, PKI ensures regulatory compliance for the Smart Grid applications. We also secure vehicle-to-vehicle communication in connected cars," he elaborates.
In the enterprise sector, we provide PKI certificates for both employees and devices. "Nexus Smart ID helps issue digital and physical identities to employees and authorized corporate users. The same platform automates certificate provisioning for various endpoints, ensuring that all devices, whether domain or non-domain, are securely managed," he notes. A client base comprising telcos, banks, governments, and IoT service providers showcases the versatility and critical importance of Nexus solutions and services.
Speaking of Nexus' success with PKI in India, Tarun remarks, "India has been a strong market for PKI. Did you know the root trust for all certificates issued to Indian citizens is based on the Nexus PKI platform? We also deliver the widely hailed, Aadhaar-based eSign, developed specifically to meet the Indian government's needs on cloud-based signatures." Nexus has successfully led similar large-scale and complex projects within the Sub-continent and Asia, creating a significant footprint in the region.
Discover how India makes legally binding e-signatures available for 1.4 billion citizens
Challenges of the future?
Looking ahead, Tarun emphasizes that identity protection remains a critical frontier. With public and private entities embracing digital identities, identity authorization and validation are also done digitally. "Here, the challenge is to secure user data while enabling legitimate use without revealing any personally identifiable information," he states.
Rapid technology evolution also means a rise in the plethora of standards and protocols for secure operations and data exchange. "This is especially true within the IoT landscape, where each device has its protocol for issuing certificates. While our solutions comply with the latest mandates, we also continuously ensure that newer standards and requirements are met."
"Another exciting development that can pose a potential threat is the emergence of Quantum Computing," Tarun continues. "We have a roadmap for quantum computing with the necessary algorithms and protocols. We recently launched a service where you can test our PKI service against the Dilithium, Kyber, and SPINCS+ algorithms released by NIST," he adds.
Sign up for our 8-week trial service to test the post-quantum readiness of Nexus Smart ID PKI
Whether for device authentication in telecom or secure communications, our solutions provide robust encryption, identity, and authentication, paving the way for a secure digital future. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, our commitment to innovation and security ensures that we are well-prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead.
*This is an excerpt from an interview originally published on CXO DX. Click here to read the full interview.
Published
09/07 2024
Tarun is a seasoned Cyber Security Professional with a Master’s in Information Security from NSUT, Delhi. With over 20 years of global experience, he has led India's PKI initiatives, including Digital Signatures and Aadhaar-based eSign.
He specializes in Public and Private CAs and IoT PKI and has served various industries like government, banking, and telecom.
Nexus is a pioneer and leader in PKI and identity security solutions.