What are non-human identities?

Non-human identities (NHIs) are digital identities for applications, services, or devices. Organizations use these identities to execute automatic machine-to-machine operations. Organizations grant NHIs specific permissions, but they often ignore the principle of least privilege (POLP). As a result, NHIs can create security vulnerabilities.

The three most common types of NHIs are:

  • Workloads: Identities assigned to or used by software workloads to authenticate to another service or resource. For example, service accounts that connect applications to databases, APIs, and other systems to automatically execute tasks.
  • API tokens: Authenticate data exchanges between applications, only permitting authorized access to sensitive information. 
  • Machine identities: Secure device identities within networks that are used widely by virtual machines, containers, and internet of things (IoT) devices.

NHIs are becoming increasingly prevalent as organizations adopt more cloud, DevOps, and IoT technologies. They facilitate secure communication across distributed cloud services, support automated workflows in DevOps, and manage thousands of IoT devices. 

With the rapid growth of NHIs, managing them is essential to protect your infrastructure from unauthorized access and security risks.

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The impact of non-human identities on cybersecurity

NHIs inherently increase the attack surface because each service account, API token, and machine identity presents a potential entry point for attackers. Under-secured identities become attractive targets, especially with the high volume of NHIs in environments. With seemingly countless NHIs deployed across modern organizations, it is easy for NHIs to be overlooked in security strategies, introducing a higher risk of unauthorized access.

NHIs frequently hold privileged access. They require broad permissions to perform tasks across networks, making them attractive targets. If attackers gain control of a privileged NHI, they can access or manipulate data, escalate privileges, and move laterally within the network undetected.

The growing number of NHIs also complicates compliance and risk management. Regulations increasingly mandate the tracking and securing of all access to sensitive data, including automated access. 

Organizations need robust NHI security policies to avoid compliance violations, penalties, and data breaches. That's why NHI management is critical to enabling a strong security posture and improving regulatory compliance.

Core challenges in managing non-human identities

Managing NHIs is often difficult. Let’s consider four common NHI management challenges.  

Volume and complexity

The large volume of NHIs from automated processes can overwhelm security controls. Users often create service accounts, API tokens, and machine identities without considering the POLP or security implications. This lack of oversight leads to misconfigurations and increases the risk of unauthorized access. Limited visibility makes managing these identities extremely difficult, potentially resulting in security gaps.

Access management

While NHIs require varying degrees of access permissions, over-privileged accounts can increase the risk of exploitation. Without sound governance, excessive permissions can go undetected. Managing access within identity and access management (IAM) is also complex, as features like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) aren’t always compatible — it can be difficult to enforce human-aimed policies on NHI accounts. After all, a non-human doesn’t have a cell phone where it can receive a six-digit confirmation code.

Monitoring and oversight

Many tools detect suspicious activity by human users but miss NHIs. These identities function continuously, generating a high level of activity that can obscure processes to distinguish legitimate actions and threats. When OAuth tokens access external services, organizations lack control over token storage, making misuse detection difficult.

Identity sprawl

Identity sprawl is especially challenging in cloud and hybrid environments, where resources span multiple platforms. NHIs are often created and forgotten, as offboarding rarely includes removing unused tokens. Without centralized oversight, these identities accumulate, creating hidden vulnerabilities, complicating policy enforcement, and increasing unauthorized access risk.

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Key strategies for securing non-human identities

Securing NHIs requires targeted strategies to address their unique vulnerabilities, such as excessive privileges and lack of visibility. The four strategies below help organizations control access, reduce risks, and prevent NHI security gaps. 

The principle of least privilege

Organizations should apply the POLP to minimize risk by granting NHIs only the permissions needed for their tasks. This approach reduces the attack surface and prevents unnecessary access, strengthening security by limiting the potential impact of a compromised identity.

Regular audits and reviews

Regular audits help prevent excessive permissions for NHIs. By reviewing access regularly, organizations can identify over-privileged accounts, revoke unused permissions, and ensure access aligns with current needs. This process helps maintain control and reduce risks.

Identity life cycle management

Effective life cycle management addresses every stage of a non-human identity’s use, from creation to retirement. Provisioning identities carefully, reviewing permissions, and promptly deactivating unused accounts can help prevent identity sprawl and ensure only active identities can access resources.

Continuous behavioral monitoring

Continuous monitoring of NHIs helps detect unusual activity and potential threats. Establishing behavioral baselines and setting alerts for deviations allows organizations to identify and respond to unauthorized access quickly, providing added protection for critical resources.

Practical steps for incorporating non-human identity security

As organizations incorporate more NHIs into their workflows, they must do so securely to maintain control and minimize risks across systems. This involves the following key steps.

Centralizing identity life cycle management

Centralizing identity life cycle management helps organizations track and control NHIs across environments. Security teams can use a unified platform to monitor access, manage permissions, and avoid inconsistent access controls. Centralization simplifies auditing and ensures consistent enforcement of security policies.

Managing tokens and certificates 

Effective token and certificate management is essential for securely handling API keys, tokens, and certificates. Organizations should securely store tokens, rotate them regularly, and use encryption to prevent unauthorized access. 

Managing certificates includes monitoring expiration dates and renewing them as needed to protect sensitive credentials and minimize the risk of compromise. It also means making sure the POLP is applied and having real-time visibility into the usage of secrets by NHIs so organizations can create access policies. 

Integrating with security frameworks

Integrating NHI management with security frameworks and processes like Zero Trust, IAM, and cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM) strengthens security. These frameworks and processes enforce strict access controls, continuously verify identity, and monitor behavior, providing comprehensive security for NHIs across environments.

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Secure the entire identity approach for your enterprise

The effective management of NHIs is crucial to securing an organization’s digital infrastructure. Though NHIs facilitate automation, they also significantly broaden the potential for security breaches. 

CrowdStrike Falcon® Identity Protection delivers real-time visibility and proactive threat detection, identifying risks and helping to stop potential attacks. 

Additionally, CrowdStrike’s identity protection services provide robust, layered security, helping organizations manage access and reduce identity-related vulnerabilities. CrowdStrike also offers an Identity Security Risk Review that assists organizations in assessing and addressing risks associated with NHIs, helping to ensure compliance and a strengthened security posture. Collectively, these solutions strengthen the security of NHIs in automated environments.

To secure your automated environments, consider adopting tools like Falcon Identity Protection. 

Venu Shastri, a seasoned Identity and cybersecurity product marketeer, serves as Director, Product Marketing at CrowdStrike for Unified Endpoint & Identity Protection. With over a decade of experience in identity, driving product marketing and management functions at Okta and Oracle , Venu has a US patent on passwordless authentication. Prior to his identity experience, Venu had co-founded and drove product management for an enterprise social software start-up. Based out of Raleigh, NC, Venu holds an MBA from the University of Santa Clara and Executive Certification from MIT Sloan.