Privacy, third party risk management (TPRM), security teams, developers, etc. – they all contribute to these newly created access points across CRM tools, development pipelines, GenAI tools, and more. Security teams have certainly realized supply chain attacks are more common than not, but the struggle is finding how to prevent them from happening in the first place. There have been a number of NHI-related attacks, from conglomerates like Microsoft, Okta, and Slack. The sprawl of third party non-human access to enterprise environments like Salesforce, GitHub and Microsoft365 create a largely ungoverned attack surface. Automation is the most frequent driver in the creation of non-human identities in order to streamline repetitive tasks and workflows, reducing human intervention and increasing operational efficiency. On the contrary, non-human identities – tokens, secrets, and other machine credentials – are not given sufficient security measures.
Sisense Breach – In April 2024, Sisense reported a security breach from unauthorized access to Sisense’s self-managed GitLab instance, which led to the exfiltration of large amounts of data, including access tokens, API keys, passwords, and certificates. The breach compromised data from major organizations, including Ticketmaster and Santander Bank, highlighting the weaknesses in cloud environments when lacking efficient security measures. Snowflake Breach – In May 2024, Snowflake fell victim to a major cybersecurity breach. 230 Million AWS Cloud Environments Compromised – In August 2024, many organizations fell victim to a large-scale extortion campaign targeting improperly configured cloud environments.
- This is why breaches based on credentials now take an average of 292 days to detect as security teams are not monitoring machine identities like they monitor identity for human accounts.
- Automated discovery tools continuously scan environments to identify new NHIs as they’re created.
- In Microsoft’s own guidance for responders when dealing with the nation-state attack they discussed how the APT was “adept at identifying and abusing OAuth applications to move laterally across cloud environments”.
- It’s easy to assign broad privileges to a service account or API key just to get something working, but those permissions often go unreviewed for months, or even years.
- Securing the software supply chain is a complex challenge, as vulnerabilities can arise from various sources, including commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software and independent software vendor (ISV) applications.
But unlike humans, these identities typically have static, long-lived credentials and elevated privileges, which is a dangerous combination when left unchecked. Non-Human Identities (NHIs), such as service accounts, workloads, and machine credentials, introduce complex and often invisible security risks. Modern identity management extends governance across both human and non-human identities with continuous lifecycle control, monitoring, and credential oversight. Modern enterprises must govern both human and non-human identities within a unified framework to reduce credential sprawl, improve visibility, and maintain compliance. Without rotation or expiration policies, these credentials can become a major security risk.
What makes NHIM different from human identity governance
Monitor all NHI activities in real time to detect unauthorized access or unusual patterns. When static credentials are required, automate rotation and expiration to minimize exposure and maintain compliance. Grant NHIs only the minimum permissions necessary for their roles, reducing the attack surface. Start by identifying and cataloging every non-human identity across cloud, SaaS, and on-premises systems. If you’re not rotating credentials automatically, assume at least one static key is already exposed.
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- However, we most likely want these systems to communicate securely, only authorizing specific identities under specific circumstances.
- Use identity access management (IAM) tools to discover, monitor, and control all non-human identities.
- It provides a set of specifications for identifying and verifying workloads in a standardized manner.
- Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) is a cybersecurity practice for identifying, investigating, and remediating cyberattacks.
Gaining full visibility into non-human identities is crucial for identifying potential vulnerabilities and managing access across systems. Unlike human users, non-human identities are often created automatically, during software deployments, API integrations, or even temporary processes. By embracing practices like secrets management, least privilege, strong authentication, and lifecycle automation, we can tame this complexity. All secrets—API keys, database passwords, TLS certificates—must be stored and managed in a dedicated, secure system. AI agents and models are rapidly becoming the most powerful and autonomous non-human actors in our systems. The number of NHIs grows daily, taking even more powerful forms, such as AI agents.
- Non-human identities include service accounts, API keys, OAuth tokens, cloud workload identities (AWS IAM roles, Azure managed identities), container credentials, IoT device certificates, and RPA bots.
- These accounts often lack ownership or lifecycle governance, and the result is a broad, often invisible attack surface.
- NHIs should be provisioned, rotated, and decommissioned automatically through workflows integrated into your CI/CD pipeline.
- Dynamic Secrets – Short-lived, automatically generated credentials that provide temporary access to resources.
Note that while most people worry about cyber risks/attacks with NHIs, don’t forget the internal actors within your organisations who may maliciously or accidentally cause impact using NHIs. With our agentless, cross-functionally aligned PAM solution, Britive empowers development teams, platform engineers, and security professionals to securely and seamlessly manage dynamic access without compromising security, innovation, or operational efficiency. The last 18 months have seen an explosion in vendors entering this space, given the recognition in the industry of NHI risks and the lack of available solutions to solve this hugely complex problem. It aims to standardize protocols for secure machine authentication and communication, ensuring https://caritasehed.org/embracing-the-future-digital-transformation-for-business.html that machine identities are managed and verified securely in web-based environments. Organizations must ensure transparency and accountability in their data processing activities, regardless of whether the data pertains to human or non-human identities.
Common Tools and Processes
For things like retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and tool-calling to be possible, AI systems need identities so they can securely access databases, user accounts, devices and other network resources. While many traditional, rules-based AI apps use standard service or workload identities, agents and other advanced AI entities often require a different approach. NHIs outnumber humans 25-50x in modern enterprises, with the ratio accelerating as AI agent deployment scales in 2026. Common types include service accounts, OAuth applications, API keys, certificates, bots, and increasingly AI agents. Non-human identities are digital credentials that authenticate machines, applications, service accounts, OAuth tokens, API keys, and AI agents. In under 6 minutes, our demo breaks down the risks AI agents bring to your SaaS environment and how you can get ahead of them.
If you’re looking for definitions and examples of non-human identities, start here. Most teams don’t set out to manage non-human identities. Every NHI access request must be continuously monitored and validated to ensure legitimacy and prevent unauthorized access. Seamless integration with existing tools and workflows ensures efficient collaboration across teams, allowing for smooth, disruption-free remediation. Effective lifecycle management ensures NHIs are active only when needed, with appropriate https://neuralooms.com/articles/top-ai-systems-in-depth-analysis/ access permissions.
Why NHIs outnumber people in most IT systems
The scale of non-human identities dwarfs human identity populations. Unlike human identities tied to individual employees, non-human identities authenticate automated entities. In reality, the apps/agents operating in your environment quietly outnumber humans 10-50x and often hold broader, more persistent access to critical systems.