Traditionally, identity referred to a human user, such as an employee, partner, or customer, and all security strategies were focused on them. Today, with enterprises accelerating their adoption of AI, automation, cloud services,and third-party integration, this definition of identity is no longer valid. The software, such as APIs, bots, AI agents, machine identities,IoT and OT convergence, and service accounts in the modern systems, act independently by leveraging digital identity or non-human identity (NHI) without human intervention at runtime. They require authenticated access just like humans.
Practice Head- IAM
Inspira Enterprise
NHIs outnumber humans
As Agentic AI scales, NHIs are not just growing linearly but exploding at an unprecedented pace, significantly outnumbering human identities. Depending on the industry type, research reveals that NHIs today outnumber human identities by a ratio of 10:1 to 45:1. In cloud-heavy financial services and technology firms, this ratio can exceed 100:1. The rise of autonomous Agentic AI is powering this trend as these agents can plan, orchestrate, and execute on behalf of human users. Despite these huge numbers, IAM strategies at organizations continue to focus almost entirely on human identity governance. Security programs are less focused on NHIs, which are not protected enough, but are provided with numerous privileges.
NHIs’ increasing security risks
NHIs are key to modern business operations, but remain poorly governed, lack visibility, and are granted excessive permissions. These ungoverned NHIs, if compromised, can become an entry point for attackers, enabling lateral movement, data exfiltration, and system manipulation, and can go undetected for long periods. Some real-world cases include SolarWinds supply chain attack in 2020, where a build pipeline service account was compromised, with attackers injecting a backdoor into signed software updates. The NHI credential provided attackers with the trusted identity necessary to distribute malware to over 18,000 organizations, including US federal agencies. In 2022, an Uber breach where a contractor’s credentials were exposed in a private GitHub repo, which led to full S3 access. In the Microsoft Storm-0558 case, a forged authentication token was used by Chinese threat actors to access Microsoft Exchange online mailboxes of US government officials. This token had no human owner to detect anomalous usage. In the context of the West Asia conflict, too, several NHI-related threat vectors have been documented or assessed as active risks. Operational Technology/Industrial Control Systems’ credential compromises were observed. Attacks on regional telecom infrastructure where NHI credentials were leveraged to intercept communications, disrupt services, or enable surveillance.
Challenges in managing NHIs
NHIs are harder to track and manage than human entities.Unlike humans, NHIs can neither be enrolled in MFA nor respond to anomaly alerts. They also cannot self-report suspicious activity. Organizations many a time are often not aware of the number of NHIs they house due to the large number of these entities, creating visibility gaps. NHIs also tend to possess more permissions than required, as developers prioritize functionality over the principle of least privilege. On several occasions, it has been observed that even after the completion of a project, the credentials of NHIs, such as API keys, continue to remain active.
Establishing a robust NHI management strategy
A structured framework is essential for effectively governing, securing, and continuously managing NHIs across the enterprise. Beyond visibility and monitoring, organizations now require a comprehensive operating model for managing NHIs throughout their lifecycle, including discovery, authentication, access governance, risk management, and continuous oversight.
- Create a complete inventory
Organizations should first gain visibility into all NHIs by deploying discovery tooling to detail all NHIs across cloud, on-prem, SaaS, and code repositories, followed by cataloging them to eliminate blind spots.
- Identify and assign ownership
Identifying who is responsible for managing NHIs is a key step. In the absence of a clear owner, APIs, bots, and service accounts are orphaned. A layered model in assigning ownership, with a primary owner, a backup owner, and an operational administrator for each NHI, is a safer option. Clearly defined ownership of NHIs is essential to ensuring regulatory compliance, enforcing robust security controls, preventing unauthorized privilege escalation, and safeguarding sensitive enterprise data.
- Lifecycle management
From provisioning to decommissioning, NHIs must follow a governed lifecycle with human ownership at every stage. This includes access review, Joiner-Mover-Leaver (JML) for NHIs, business owner mapping, appropriate onboarding, expiry and certification, and automated decommissioning.
- Strong secrets and credential security
All credentials associated with NHIs, such as passwords, API keys, certificates, and tokens, are primary attack targetsthat must be securely stored, rotated, and monitored. Source code, config files, and artifacts must be continuously scanned for leaked credentials. Hardcoded credentials should be eliminated, and centralized secrets management solutions adopted instead.
- Implement least privilege access
Since NHIs often carry excessive permissions accumulated over time, right-sizing access is key. Actual permission usage versus assigned rights has to be analyzed, and never-used permissions identified. Applying the principle of least privilege ensures that every identity has access only to the resources necessary to perform its intended function.
- Governance and compliance framework
Organizations should define clear policies for identity creation, credential management, rotation, and access reviews, while establishing ownership through a structured accountability model. NHI controls must also align with key regulatory frameworks such as SOX, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, NIST CSF, DORA, and NIS2. Automated compliance dashboards can further support continuous monitoring, posture assessment, exception tracking, and audit readiness.
As organizations accelerate AI adoption and digital transformation, NHIs are emerging as one of the fastest-growing and least-managed attack surfaces in the enterprise. From shadow NHIs and orphaned credentials created through M&A activity to insider risks and future quantum-era vulnerabilities, the challenge extends far beyond traditional cybersecurity. Effective NHI management is now critical not only for security, but also for business continuity, operational resilience, and governance. Organizations that proactively strengthen visibility, ownership, and control over NHIs will be better positioned to secure their evolving digital ecosystems in the age of AI.
–Authored by Santosh Pai- Practice Head- IAM, Inspira Enterprise