Wibu-Systems has developed CodeMeter Certificate Vault as a hardware key storage solution for PKCS#11, Microsoft CNG, and OpenSSL certificates. It is used to securely contain the private keys, with access restricted to applications using TLS certificates and OPC UA entities. The technology was born to make requesting, updating, and transferring certificates easy and comfortable, using the same popular mechanisms that CodeMeter employs for creating, managing, and delivering licenses.

Certificates can be mission critical, as they can be used to identify machines and operators with absolute certainty – an often overlooked, but indispensable ability in the digital age. However, certificate management and key storage used to be too complex and unwieldy. CodeMeter Certificate Vault was born to break this impasse: It uses the same protection hardware and underlying CodeMeter technology that has been favored by software developers and hardware manufacturers in the industrial IIoT to protect their technical knowhow and IP since 2003. CodeMeter Certificate Vault stores certificates in the tamperproof smartcard chips of dedicated dongles that act as secure hardware elements to provide a shared container for both cryptographic keys and secure software licenses. The approach simplifies key management and delivery enormously and integrates smoothly with existing license management workflows. The necessary CmDongles are available in many form factors, such as USB dongles, memory cards, and ASICs, including industry-grade versions of each type.