You’ve likely secured every employee, admin, and contractor in your system—but there’s a growing identity blind spot: non-human identities (NHIs).
From APIs and microservices to bots and automated pipelines, NHIs are everywhere. They power modern DevOps environments and access critical systems, yet they often lack visibility, governance, and lifecycle controls. That makes them a major attack vector—and one you can’t afford to ignore.
What Are Non-Human Identities?
Non-human identities are digital credentials used by software, services, bots, and machines. Unlike human users, NHIs are created automatically and operate silently. They use secrets, tokens, and keys to access databases, run CI/CD pipelines, process data, and automate tasks.
These identities usually come with elevated privileges, rarely get reviewed, and often bypass onboarding/offboarding. That combination makes them easy to exploit and hard to detect.
Common Types of Non-Human Identities
In modern cloud-native environments, NHIs take many forms:
1. API Keys
Tokens that allow applications to securely access other systems.
2. Service Accounts
Privileged accounts used by apps and services to talk to internal tools and databases.
3. DevOps Tools
Tools like Jenkins and GitHub use tokens to run pipelines and deploy apps.
4. RPA Bots
Robotic process automation bots perform repetitive tasks such as data entry and reporting.
5. Cloud Workload Identities
IAM roles and machine identities used at scale across cloud platforms.
8 Key Security Risks of NHIs
1. Excessive Permissions
Many NHIs are given blanket permissions during setup. These permissions go unchecked and violate the principle of least privilege. If attackers compromise these identities, they can gain powerful, persistent access. For example, in the 2024 Microsoft OAuth compromise, an overly privileged NHI enabled lateral movement across internal systems.
Prevention:
Enforce least privilege access.
Regularly audit NHI permissions.
Use Just-In-Time (JIT) access.
2. Credential Stuffing
NHIs often use hardcoded or reused secrets. Attackers collect compromised credentials from past breaches or exposed repos and try them across systems. Once they gain access, the damage can be extensive.
Prevention:
Rotate credentials frequently.
Use vaults to manage secrets.
Switch to token- or certificate-based auth.
3. API Abuse
Unscoped API keys are a top target. In the BeyondTrust breach, attackers used a leaked API key to manipulate credentials and gain unauthorized access.
Prevention:
Enforce API key scopes and rate limits.
Monitor usage for anomalies.
Expire and rotate keys regularly.
4. Hardcoded Secrets
Developers often hardcode tokens into scripts, config files, or containers. These secrets can be leaked via public repos or unsecured deployments, exposing your environment.
Prevention:
Scan code for secrets pre-deployment.
Never store secrets in plain text.
Use ephemeral secrets managed via a secure platform.
5. Orphaned and Abandoned Identities
When services are retired or team members leave, associated NHIs often remain active. These abandoned identities are invisible doors that attackers can use to re-enter your systems unnoticed.
Prevention:
Tag NHIs with ownership metadata.
Offboard unused NHIs.
Automate lifecycle expiration for idle identities.
6. Lack of Visibility
Organizations operating in multi-cloud, containerized environments can easily lose track of NHIs. Without a central inventory, these silent actors become unmanaged threats.
Prevention:
Maintain real-time, centralized inventories.
Audit activity logs regularly.
7. Long-Lived Credentials
Static, never-expiring secrets widen the attack window. The 2024 Internet Archive breach stemmed from stale API tokens that exposed nearly 800,000 records.
Prevention:
Rotate secrets automatically.
Use short-lived tokens.
Enforce expiration and Zero Trust policies.
8. Shared Identities Across Environments
NHIs are often reused between dev, staging, and production environments. If one key is compromised in staging, it may still have access to production systems.
Prevention:
Assign unique NHIs per environment.
Scope access to environment-specific needs.
Strengthening NHI Security
Apply Least Privilege
Grant only the permissions required—nothing more. Regularly review roles and eliminate unused access.
Automate Credential Rotation
Make credential rotation automatic. Long-lived secrets must be replaced with short-lived tokens wherever possible.
Monitor and Audit Continuously
Use monitoring tools to track NHI behavior. Look for unusual access patterns or privilege escalation.
Enforce Lifecycle Policies
Assign owners to each NHI. Expire NHIs when no longer needed. Automate retirement of unused identities.
Secure APIs and Secrets
Use secure vaults, scan for hardcoded secrets, and limit token lifespan. Make secrets dynamic, not static.
Use Just-In-Time Access to Minimize Risk
JIT access is a security practice that grants temporary permissions only when needed and revokes them immediately afterward. This minimizes standing privileges and reduces the window of opportunity for attackers.
Apono is a platform designed to enable JIT access across your infrastructure. It automates permissions, gives your team on-demand access via Slack or CLI, and ensures every NHI has just enough access, just in time.
Take Control of NHIs with Apono
Non-human identities are expanding rapidly—and so are the risks they bring. From excessive permissions to long-lived secrets, these identities expose your systems in ways traditional IAM can't cover.
Apono helps you regain control. With automated access management, lifecycle enforcement, and JIT capabilities, Apono eliminates standing privileges and enforces Zero Trust principles at scale.
Whether you're managing hundreds or thousands of NHIs, Apono ensures they operate securely, efficiently, and only when needed.
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