An explosion of invisible identities
Non-human identities (NHI) include service accounts, application secrets, certificates, API keys, RPA bots, AI agents, connected devices, and cloud workloads—all of which hold very real access rights. With the widespread adoption of APIs, scripts, and IoT devices, these identities have become so numerous that they often outnumber human identities, while remaining largely invisible to business and security teams. This “dark mass” of identities creates a major blind spot: excessive permissions, orphaned accounts, and scattered secrets provide an ideal breeding ground for cyberattackers.
Underestimated systemic risks
Several field studies show that machine identities are frequently granted elevated privileges for practical reasons, without regular review or a clearly identified owner. Technical accounts left active after a migration, API tokens that never expire, or hard-coded service passwords constitute discreet yet critical entry points. In a Zero Trust context, this situation is paradoxical: while controls are tightening around humans, non-human identities still too often enjoy implicit trust.
Toward Dedicated Governance of Non-Human Identities
IAM stakeholders are now converging on a clear understanding: it is no longer sufficient to treat NHI as mere variants of traditional users. Dedicated “Machine Identity Management” approaches are emerging, combining automated discovery, classification by criticality, lifecycle management, and continuous behavioral monitoring. The goal is to ensure that no machine identity is created without an owner, that no rights are granted without justification, and that no secrets remain static or outside a centralized solution.
The Pillars of Effective Governance
The best practices identified here provide an operational roadmap for CISOs and IAM managers.
Key levers include:
- Inventory and visibility: Continuous discovery of all service accounts, certificates, API keys, bots, and cloud identities, including those outside of traditional IAM repositories.
- Ownership and responsibility: Assign each non-human identity to a human sponsor or an application team, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
- Lifecycle: Manage creation, modification, and deletion through workflows and dedicated tools to prevent orphaned accounts and residual permissions.
- Least privilege and JIT: strictly limit the permissions granted; prioritize temporary access and short-lived secrets over permanent credentials.
- Secure management of credentials: Remove privileged credentials from scripts and configurations, and centralize them in encrypted vaults with automatic rotation.
- Monitoring and detection: continuously analyze the use of machine identities, detect deviations from expected behavior, and trigger automated responses.
A strategic challenge for organizations
The rise of AI, RPA, and multi-cloud will only accelerate the proliferation of non-human identities within information systems. Organizations that delay integrating these identities into their IAM governance policies risk building their cybersecurity on an incomplete foundation, riddled with critical accounts that slip under the radar. Conversely, those that establish robust governance for non-human identities now—combining visibility, accountability, PAM, Zero Trust, and automation—transform a latent risk into a driver of resilience and compliance.
