Every unmanaged SSH key is a potential backdoor for unauthorized access. In most enterprises, there are thousands—and sometimes millions—of keys no one is actively tracking. That’s why AppViewX is announcing the general availability of AVX ONE SSH, a purpose-built product that closes one of security’s most overlooked gaps: SSH key sprawl and lifecycle management across hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures.

The Enterprise SSH Key Challenge

SSH is foundational to secure enterprise operations, enabling everything from server administration to DevOps automation. But, because keys are easy to create and don’t expire by default, they proliferate rapidly and quietly. Over time, organizations accumulate keys scattered across the infrastructure—with limited visibility into who can access what.

The security implications are significant. Every unmanaged key can become an unmonitored access path, resulting in a compliance gap or an audit failure. Recent research indicates that up to 90% of organizations lack a complete inventory of active SSH keys, and 54% still rely on manual processes, like spreadsheets, for key management—clear signals that automation and governance are overdue.

Left unchecked, SSH key sprawl drives three primary enterprise risks:

Security exposure: Persistent access paths that bypass traditional access controls and monitoring.

Compliance failures: Regulations require complete access records, including SSH keys and certificates, and gaps can lead to penalties.

Operational inefficiency: Manual key management does not scale and consumes significant team resources while delivering incomplete coverage.

Meet AVX ONE SSH

Built on AppViewX’s certificate lifecycle management platform, AVX ONE SSH delivers comprehensive SSH key lifecycle management through three core capabilities: visibility, automation, and policy control.

Visibility

Effective security starts with clear visibility. AVX ONE SSH discovers and inventories every key and certificate across the enterprise, eliminating blind spots and providing the intelligence needed to manage risk proactively.

Comprehensive Discovery: Automatically scan and discover all SSH keys and certificates (both user and host) across hybrid, multi-cloud, and DevOps environments to eliminate blind spots.

Centralized Inventory Management: Maintain a single, central inventory of SSH keys and certificates to simplify monitoring and management across a distributed infrastructure.

Trust Relationship Mapping: Visualize trust relationships between users, hosts, servers, and service accounts to enable successful key rotations and maintain operational continuity.

Risk Intelligence: Perform SSH risk assessments and trend analysis using the Risk Dashboard to monitor the status of keys and configurations, enabling proactive security management.

Automation

Managing SSH keys at scale can become overwhelming. AVX ONE SSH automates the entire lifecycle and reduces manual effort to ensure consistent, secure operations.

Complete Lifecycle Automation: Generate, provision, rotate, and delete keys automatically to eliminate manual effort and promote crypto-agility.

One-Click Risk Remediation: Instantly delete or rotate suspicious, shared, orphaned, or weak keys with single-click remediation to contain security threats and enforce security policies.

Automated Workflows: Leverage custom or out-of-the-box workflows to streamline complex rotations and deletions that align with compliance controls or change windows.

Seamless Integration and Self-Service: Automate SSH key and access onboarding via native integrations with IAM and DevOps tools. Allow users to securely request/generate keys and manage access through a self-service UI, so teams manage SSH access the way they prefer to work.

Control

Governance is essential for long-term security. AVX ONE SSH automatically enforces policies, streamlines reporting, and enables access controls to maintain oversight while supporting operational agility.

Zero-Touch Policy Enforcement: Enforce organizational policies for SSH key generation to ensure every key meets standards without manual intervention.

Rotation Policy Management: Define rotation intervals and automate enforcement to maintain a continuous security posture.

Risk Assessment and Compliance: Generate audit-ready reports and maintain detailed logs and trails to demonstrate adherence to regulatory frameworks and security audits.

Granular Access Controls: Apply role-based access control (RBAC) and host grouping to delegate SSH access at scale while retaining centralized oversight and guardrails.

Integrations Built for Your IT Stack

AVX ONE SSH integrates with the existing enterprise systems you’re already using:

Cloud Platforms: Native integration with AWS for seamless key management across hybrid environments.

Identity Systems: Connects with CyberArk and leading PAM solutions to align SSH access with enterprise identity governance.

DevOps Tools: Supports SSH capabilities through APIs, which can be seamlessly integrated with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps tools such as Ansible and Puppet.

ITSM: Connects to ServiceNow, BMC Remedy, and similar platforms to incorporate SSH key requests and approvals into established service management processes.

Flexible Deployment: Choose SaaS for rapid time-to-value or on-premises to meet specific regulatory or security requirements.

Why SSH Lifecycle Management is Critical Now

SSH key sprawl represents a significant and growing security risk that traditional tools and processes cannot address at an enterprise scale. The proliferation of unmanaged keys creates persistent access paths that bypass conventional security controls, while manual management processes can’t keep up with hybrid infrastructure and increased regulatory scrutiny.

To close this gap, organizations need automated discovery to understand their current exposure, policy-driven controls to prevent future sprawl, and integrated workflows that align with existing security operations.

AVX ONE SSH addresses these requirements by transforming SSH lifecycle management from a manual, error-prone process into an automated, policy-driven capability. The result: stronger security posture, lower operational overhead, and faster paths to compliance across environments.

For security teams managing complex, distributed infrastructure, comprehensive SSH lifecycle management is no longer optional—it’s essential for maintaining resilience in today’s threat landscape.

Visit AVX ONE SSH for more information about SSH (Secure Shell) Lifecycle Management

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Will AVX ONE SSH break access during rotation?
A: No. Rotations are staged with preflight checks, trust-mapping, and canary batches, with automatic rollback on validation failure. You can start in read-only discovery, then roll out changes by host group or business unit to avoid disruption. As long as your infrastructure is fully discovered by AppViewX, rotations will not break. However, for any key instance not discovered by AppViewX, rotations may cause disruption.

Q: Is discovery agentless or agent-based?
A: Agentless by default. AVX ONE SSH enumerates keys and trust relationships via credentialed connections and integrations (e.g., config management/CMDB). For constrained zones, lightweight connectors are supported.

Q: Do you support SSH certificates (OpenSSH CA) and migrations from keys?
A: Yes. AVX ONE SSH manages both traditional keys and OpenSSH certificates, enabling policy-issued, short-lived certs. Many teams use it to phase out long-lived keys and reduce standing access.

Q: How is this different from PAM or a secrets manager (e.g., CyberArk, Vault)?
A: PAM governs privileged sessions; secrets managers store/broker secrets. AVX ONE SSH governs the lifecycle of SSH identities (keys & certs): discovery, mapping, rotation, and policy enforcement—while integrating with PAM/IAM/secrets tools.

Q: Can we enforce policy (algorithms, lifetimes, rotation) and prove compliance?
A: Yes. Define cryptographic and rotation policies; AVX ONE SSH enforces them automatically and produces audit-ready reports and trails (with RBAC and host grouping) to demonstrate control to regulators and auditors.

See AVX ONE SSH in Action

If you don’t know how many SSH keys you have—or who can access them—you already have a problem. If you’re ready to take control, we can help. Get the full breakdown of the solution, integrations, and deployment options in the AVX ONE SSH datasheet, or book a tailored demo to see it in action.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Blogs Archive - AppViewX authored by AppViewX. Read the original post at: https://www.appviewx.com/blogs/avx-one-ssh-comprehensive-ssh-key-lifecycle-management-for-enterprise-security/