diff --git a/awx/main/credential_plugins/conjur.py b/awx/main/credential_plugins/conjur.py
index 645ff16afa..048170843f 100644
--- a/awx/main/credential_plugins/conjur.py
+++ b/awx/main/credential_plugins/conjur.py
@@ -1,7 +1,10 @@
 from .plugin import CredentialPlugin
 
 import base64
-import io
+import os
+import stat
+import tempfile
+import threading
 from urllib.parse import urljoin, quote_plus
 
 from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
@@ -47,6 +50,24 @@ conjur_inputs = {
 }
 
 
+def create_temporary_fifo(data):
+    """Open fifo named pipe in a new thread using a temporary file path. The
+    thread blocks until data is read from the pipe.
+
+    Returns the path to the fifo.
+
+    :param data(bytes): Data to write to the pipe.
+    """
+    path = os.path.join(tempfile.mkdtemp(), next(tempfile._get_candidate_names()))
+    os.mkfifo(path, stat.S_IRUSR | stat.S_IWUSR)
+
+    threading.Thread(
+        target=lambda p, d: open(p, 'wb').write(d),
+        args=(path, data)
+    ).start()
+    return path
+
+
 def conjur_backend(**kwargs):
     url = kwargs['url']
     api_key = kwargs['api_key']
@@ -54,19 +75,29 @@ def conjur_backend(**kwargs):
     username = quote_plus(kwargs['username'])
     secret_path = quote_plus(kwargs['secret_path'])
     version = kwargs.get('secret_version')
-    cert = io.StringIO()
-    cert.write(kwargs.get('cacert', ''))
+    cacert = kwargs.get('cacert', None)
+
+    auth_kwargs = {
+        'headers': {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'},
+        'data': api_key
+    }
+    if cacert:
+        auth_kwargs['verify'] = create_temporary_fifo(cacert.encode())
 
     # https://www.conjur.org/api.html#authentication-authenticate-post
     resp = requests.post(
         urljoin(url, '/'.join(['authn', account, username, 'authenticate'])),
-        headers={'Content-Type': 'text/plain'},
-        data=api_key,
-        verify=cert
+        **auth_kwargs
     )
     resp.raise_for_status()
     token = base64.b64encode(resp.content).decode('utf-8')
 
+    lookup_kwargs = {
+        'headers': {'Authorization': 'Token token="{}"'.format(token)},
+    }
+    if cacert:
+        lookup_kwargs['verify'] = create_temporary_fifo(cacert.encode())
+
     # https://www.conjur.org/api.html#secrets-retrieve-a-secret-get
     path = urljoin(url, '/'.join([
         'secrets',
@@ -76,11 +107,8 @@ def conjur_backend(**kwargs):
     ]))
     if version:
         path = '?'.join([path, version])
-    resp = requests.get(
-        path,
-        headers={'Authorization': 'Token token="{}"'.format(token)},
-        verify=cert
-    )
+
+    resp = requests.get(path, **lookup_kwargs)
     resp.raise_for_status()
     return resp.text