SSH Key Management Approaches and Best Practices

This guide presents various SSH key management approaches, detailing the challenges organizations face in managing SSH keys effectively. It outlines the SSH key management problem, emphasizing that many credential management and privileged access management (PAM) tools fail to provide comprehensive solutions. The document categorizes management methods into good, bad, and ugly approaches, highlighting the potential pitfalls of each. For instance, it discusses the limitations of traditional PAM systems, which are often designed primarily for password governance rather than key management. The guide also emphasizes the importance of implementing proper key management processes and introduces nine different methods for managing SSH keys, each with its own set of benefits and disadvantages. By addressing these methods, organizations can avoid the risks associated with mismanagement, such as vulnerabilities and inefficiencies, ultimately leading to better security practices.