Some organizations have found that for every 1,000 human users, organizations typically have 10,000 non-human connections or credentials — in some cases, NHIs can outnumber human identities a much as 50 to one. Data sources included real-world breaches, surveys, CVE databases, and more. We identified key risks through real-world incidents, surveys, CVE databases, and industry input. The key issues above make it so a compromised NHIs can lead to unauthorized access, data breaches, or attacks on infrastructure. Non-human identities (NHIs) are used to identify, authenticate, and authorize different software entities to access secured resources.
Organizations deploying AI agents at scale today often lack the safeguards and https://4equality.info/getting-down-to-basics-with-30/ governance frameworks required to manage these identities securely. Implementing least-privilege ensures that non-human identities are granted only the necessary access rights for the required duration, as this can significantly reduce the attack surface. Each new integration, automation, and microservice adds to the complexity, bringing in new non-human identities that need to be managed.
It states that you should grant NHIs only the bare minimum permissions required to perform their tasks. Unlike human users, who are solely responsible for their usernames, passwords, or MFA channels, NHIs are typically shared across teams. In 2023, a Microsoft account(MSA) signing key, which was supposed to be securely stored, was accidentally exposed. When NHIs are not properly managed, they create unique security challenges that cyber attackers can exploit. Without centralized monitoring and direct human oversight, it becomes challenging for security teams to maintain visibility into which NHIs are active, their permissions, and whether they are still needed.
Non-human identities outnumber humans as much as 50 to 1
Without a way to track and govern these credentials, your attack surface grows with every line of code. Organizations today may have thousands or even millions of non-human identities, far outpacing their human workforce. If you’ve built or operated a system that integrates with anything else, you’ve probably worked with non-human identities—whether you realized it or not. In fact, machine identities often make up the majority of access activity within a cloud environment. It’s what allows systems to communicate with each other securely, without human interaction. Unlike traditional lists that address human-centric vulnerabilities, the NHI Top 10 addresses the scale, lifecycle, and governance challenges of machine identities, which often outnumber human users and require distinct security controls.
These best practices form the foundation for securing NHIs at scale. Despite this, research shows that fewer than 15 per cent of organisations feel confident in their ability to secure non-human identities. According to industry research, only 5.7 per cent of organisations can fully inventory their non-human identities.
What are non-human identities?
And then you figure out how to scope what that agent can do, both the good and the bad. Instead of using separate controls for each kind of identity, the primary difference between human and nonhuman ID management might be the scale at which those controls are applied. This situation can be prevented by making it so that a human—or some other system—must approve refunds before the agent can grant them. Human customers like being refunded, so the AI agent might indiscriminately approve every refund request in pursuit of its goal. For example, recall the hypothetical AI customer service agent that is optimized to maximize customer satisfaction. A hijacked NHI might be able to access the one database it legitimately needs, but it won’t be able to move to unrelated storage systems.
Non-Human Identities and the Rise of AI
Think apps, services, devices—anything that needs to talk to other systems automatically. Healthcare cyberattacks are increasing in “frequency, severity and sophistication,” said Nitin Natarajan, U… Our eBook “Key Considerations for Securing Different Types of Non-human Identities” walks you through best practices for securing secrets in each of these categories. You can see how overwhelming secrets management can get when you’re working with a large number and variety of non-human identities. But manual credential rotations for these bots do not scale, especially when an organization is using a large number of unattended bots without a human supervisor. Automation tools and scripts can be powerful and perform complex IT and other related tasks.
A. Comprehensive Inventory of All Non-Human Identities
Zero trust, if implemented properly, can adjust to meet specific needs and still ensure an ROI on your security strategy. To implement this, you should replace static credentials with Ephemeral, short-lived tokens that expire automatically. For example, if an API key is used to access a system it was never meant to interact with, logs and proper auditing can help you identify the issue and take action before any damage occurs. You can reduce the risk of credential leaks and ensure your NHIs are always up to date and decommissioned when necessary with proper lifecycle management. To avoid security issues, they must be rotated regularly, deactivated when no longer required, and tracked throughout their lifecycle.
Actionable insights on NHIs: The hidden costs, agentic AI risk
In some cases, they have said it’s not practical, or they don’t have the budgets to focus on the huge efforts required to remediate NHI risks, given all their other security priorities. Many larger organisations will need to set up dedicated NHI programs and teams, using a combination of their existing IAM resources as well as professional services organisations. Professional services organisations, which historically focused on the Human Identity space, will start vying for a slice of the huge NHI pie.
- For example, consider a web application that queries a database.
- Analytics and machine learning also play their part in continuous monitoring, detecting anomalous behavior, and identifying risky access and permission pathways across your identity fabric.
- AI agents represent the newest and fastest-growing category of non-human identities.
- To mitigate these risks, organizations need a clear strategy for differentiating and securely managing both identity types.
- From machine learning pipelines to infrastructure as code, NHIs power the automation that businesses rely on to move faster, scale smarter, and operate globally.
- However, these identities are frequent targets in software supply chain attacks, as seen in incidents involving open-source tools like Log4j.
This allows organizations to identify and respond to potential threats before they escalate into breaches. Phishing-resistant options like Okta FastPass provide additional protection against credential-based attacks. Governance consistency across IAM systems is required to maintain compliance and operational integrity. Proper governance ensures that access aligns with role requirements and organizational policy. Separate policy frameworks for human and non-human identities are no longer sustainable. The scale of machine identity growth, combined with documented compromise rates, makes unified governance a security requirement rather than an operational https://envoyezballadervosenfants.com/business-information-in-the-future.html preference.
– What Are The Key Standards That Exist For NHIs?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Applies to the European Union and has significant implications for non-human identities. It helps organizations manage the security of assets such as financial information, intellectual property, employee details, and information entrusted by third parties. With the introduction of DORA, financial institutions are now required to follow stringent guidelines for safeguarding against Information and Communication Technology (ICT) related incidents. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) – Requires publicly traded companies to implement internal controls to ensure the accuracy and integrity of financial reporting. A number of them, as part of broader industry-wide cyber threat assessment exercises, perform red-team exercises that regularly end up identifying NHI risks, particularly around hardcoded/unencrypted credentials in source code.
Establish NHI classification and ownership
Having worked in the Financial Industry for over 30 years, I have been at the coalface, engaging and dealing with all the major regulators and external auditors (PWC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG) around the world in the NHI/IAM/PAM areas. Dynamic Secrets – Short-lived, automatically generated credentials that provide temporary access to resources. Typically, scanning solutions will let you know a credential has been found, but it won’t tell you the context of that credential, such as what is the identity of that account (name) and where it is used (e.g., a local account on a database). While you may be able to identify plain-text/unencrypted credentials, understanding their content can be challenging. Locally defined NHIs will typically require custom feeds to be built, which can take a significant amount of time and effort to develop. NHIs defined in a Directory Service like Active Directory are much easier to inventory and manage compared to local accounts defined directly on a platform (e.g., on an operating system or database).