As digital environments continue to evolve, non-human identities (NHIs) have become indispensable to enterprise operations. From cloud platforms to automation and AI-driven processes, NHIs enable seamless functionality but also introduce significant security challenges. This guide explores NHIs, their types, use cases, risks, and best practices to help security teams better manage these essential digital entities.
What Is a Non-Human Identity (NHI)?
A non-human identity refers to any digital credential used by machines, applications, or automated processes to authenticate and execute tasks within IT systems. Unlike human identities, NHIs aren’t tied to individuals—they serve roles like accessing resources, transferring data, or performing automated workflows. As automation, cloud computing, and AI adoption grow, NHIs have become integral to modern enterprises.
Human Identities vs Non-Human Identities
| Aspect | Human Identities | Non-Human Identities |
| Ownership | Linked to individuals (employees, contractors, partners, etc.) | Assigned to machines, applications, APIs, or automated processes. |
| Volume | Limited, proportional to workforce size. | Vastly higher—outnumbering human identities by 45:1 (and even more). |
| Operation & Management | Centralized and managed by IAM teams. | Fragmented across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem environments. |
| Privileges | Limited to user roles and responsibilities. | Often overprivileged, creating security risks. |
| Security Threats | Prone to phishing and credential theft. | Vulnerable to credential leak or exposure, misuse, and exploitation, while leveraging their excessive privileges. |
| Lifecycle Management | Streamlined via HR and IAM systems. | Often inconsistent with limited visibility. |
| Access Controls | Protected with controls such as Passkeys and multi-factor authentication (MFA). | Lack of inherent controls; often rely on static credentials like API keys or certificates. |
| Monitoring & Oversight | Subject to continuous monitoring and audits by IAM and security teams. | Typically under-monitored, with visibility gaps across environments. |
Read more about the differences between Human vs Non-Human Identities.
How Non-Human Identities (NHIs) Function
NHIs operate by authenticating and authorizing machines or applications to access resources. Unlike traditional human identities, NHIs are designed for automation and scalability. For example:
- An API key grants access to cloud resources.
- A service account automates backups or deployments.
- A certificate enables encrypted communications between servers.
Each NHI comes with specific privileges, making it essential to enforce least privilege access to mitigate risks.
Examples of Non-Human Identities
- Tokens - Small pieces of data, often temporary, used to authenticate and authorize access to services. For example, OAuth tokens enable API access and validate machine-to-machine communication.
- Secrets - Sensitive data such as passwords, encryption keys, or API tokens used for authentication and encryption. For instance, API keys stored in secure vaults are critical for protecting systems from unauthorized access.
- API Keys - Unique identifiers that authenticate requests to APIs and facilitate programmatic operations. A common example is a cloud service API key used to manage resources within a specific platform.
- Service Accounts - Specialized accounts created for applications or automated processes to interact with systems. For example, a service account may handle automated backups or manage database operations in a cloud environment.
- Certificates - Digital certificates that verify the identity of entities and enable encrypted communications. Examples include SSL/TLS certificates used to secure website traffic or server-to-server communications.
Dive deep into the diverse types of NHIs, their mapping across various environments, and their security features in our NHI Index.
Non-Human Identity Security Use Cases
1. Non-Human Identity Visibility
Visibility is the foundation of strong non-human identity security. NHIs often operate behind the scenes across cloud platforms, SaaS tools, code repos, CI/CD pipelines, and on-prem systems—many undocumented or unmonitored. Continuous discovery and clear inventories reduce blind spots and security risks.
2. Non-Human Identity Context
Comprehensive visibility is crucial, but it’s not enough—context is equally critical. If visibility is the map, then context is the legend—without it, you’re navigating blind. Security teams must understand each NHI’s origin, ownership, storage, usage patterns, and permissions. Clutch’s Identity Lineage™ provides detailed NHI mapping, helping teams make informed, risk-based decisions.
3. Non-Human Identity Lifecycle Management (NHI-LCM)
Effective lifecycle management ensures NHIs are active only when needed, with appropriate access permissions. Unlike human identities tied to HR systems, NHIs often lack clear governance, leading to overprivileged or stale accounts. Automating audits, expiration policies, and decommissioning reduces risks and improves security posture.
4. Non-Human Identity Security Posture Management (NHI-SPM)
Comprehensive risk management involves identifying and prioritizing risks such as misconfigured, overprivileged, or stale NHIs, enabling swift, playbook-driven remediation to reduce the attack surface and prevent breaches. Seamless integration with existing tools and workflows ensures efficient collaboration across teams, allowing for smooth, disruption-free remediation.
5. Non-Human Identity Threat Detection and Response (NHI-TDR)
As NHIs proliferate at a staggering pace, organizations should embrace the "Assume Leak" mindset, operating under the assumption that an NHI has already been exposed. While malicious insiders may intentionally leak credentials, most NHI exposures occur unintentionally—embedded in source code, shared in developer forums, or left in publicly accessible repositories. This approach focuses on two key pillars:
- Early Detection: Continuous monitoring and behavioral analytics to spot suspicious activities like unauthorized access, unusual logins, or abnormal NHI behavior in real-time.
- Immediate Response: Swiftly revoking compromised NHIs, automating containment to limit damage, reduce downtime, and prevent data breaches.
6. Zero Trust Protection
Traditional security models assume implicit trust in NHIs, relying on periodic credential rotation to mitigate risks. However, this approach is not just insufficient—it’s dangerous, creating a false sense of security. In a world where attackers move fast and exploit leaked secrets within seconds, there is an urgent need to shift from reactive measures to proactive controls.
Zero Trust for NHIs means no non-human entity is automatically trusted, and verification is always required. Every NHI access request must be continuously monitored and validated to ensure legitimacy and prevent unauthorized access. This proactive approach reduces the attack surface and replaces inefficient rotation with controls that not only strengthen NHI security but also enhance operational efficiency and empower security teams to operate independently.
Risks and Vulnerabilities of Non-Human Identities
As NHIs proliferate across organizations, they introduce diverse risks and expand the attack surface in complex and often uncontrolled ways.
- Without proper lifecycle management, stale identities, expired credentials, and even active service accounts tied to departed employees remain exploitable.
- Access control weaknesses, such as overprivileged NHIs—identities with excessive, unnecessary access—pose a critical risk by granting broad access to sensitive data and resources, potentially enabling lateral movement if compromised.
- Poor storage practices, such as credentials stored in plaintext or unmanaged password managers, further increase exposure.
- Even actively used NHIs create security challenges—multi-use across systems means that if one is compromised, unauthorized access could spread across all connected systems.
- Violations of compliance mandates like GDPR, or access attempts from unauthorized locations, heighten the risk of data leaks, breaches, and misuse—especially across international boundaries—and can result in severe fines.
Challenges in Securing and Managing Non-Human Identities
NHIs have become both indispensable and increasingly difficult to secure and manage. Here are the core challenges security teams face:
- Fragmentation Across Environments: NHIs are spread across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem systems. This fragmentation complicates visibility and controls and increases risks.
- Lack of Centralized Visibility and Context: NHIs often proliferate unnoticed in diverse and siloed environments. You can’t protect what you can’t see, and without context, understanding and identifying risks is difficult.
- Expanding Attack Surfaces: NHIs expand the attack surface across multi-terrain environments, with blind spots in monitoring and governance.
- Excessive Permissions: Overprivileged NHIs create opportunities for privilege escalation if compromised.
- Credential Compromise Risks: Static credentials like API keys pose high risks if exposed.
- Inefficient Lifecycle Management: Poor management leads to orphaned accounts and stale credentials vulnerable to exploitation.
Effective Security and Management Strategies for Non-Human Identities
- Centralized Identity Management - Unifying NHI visibility across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem environments enables consistent security controls and reduces credential sprawl.
- Enforce Least Privilege Access - Limit NHIs to the minimum permissions needed, reducing risks of lateral movement in case of compromise.
- Real-Time Monitoring and Anomaly Detection - Continuous monitoring helps detect suspicious behavior and trigger automated responses, preventing breaches before they escalate.
- Implement Zero Trust Security - Assume no NHI is inherently trustworthy. Continuous validation reduces the risk of misuse, even if credentials are compromised.
- Adopt Ephemeral Certificates - Replace static credentials with short-lived, auto-expiring certificates. This reduces management overhead, and most importantly - limits exposure if credentials are leaked.
Emerging Trends in the Non-Human Identity Landscape
1. Integration with Multi-Cloud Environments
As multi-cloud adoption grows, managing NHIs across AWS, Azure, and GCP requires seamless integration for consistent security postures across all environments.
2. AI Adoption and AI-Driven Identity Automation
AI is transforming NHI management. Agentic AI relies heavily on NHIs, emphasizing the need for robust security. At the same time, AI-driven automation improves NHI provisioning, monitoring, and risk detection.
3. Rise of Serverless and Identity Federation
Serverless architectures shift security from traditional perimeters to identity-based models. Identity federation enables secure, centralized management of machine identities across diverse environments, reducing reliance on static credentials.
How Can Clutch Help with Non-Human Identity Security and Management?
Clutch Security offers a comprehensive solution designed to tackle the unique challenges of NHI security and management. Our platform empowers organizations to know, understand, control, and secure NHIs across the entire organizational landscape. Here’s how Clutch can help:
- Holistic Visibility and Context: Clutch provides a centralized view of all NHIs across all landscapes, eliminating blind spots and delivering detailed context for comprehensive oversight.
- Streamlined Lifecycle Management: Clutch manages the entire NHI lifecycle - from creation to decommissioning - ensuring efficient provisioning and governance.
- Actionable Risk Identification and Remediation: Clutch identifies and prioritizes NHI risks, enabling security teams to focus on what matters most. It offers predefined playbooks for effective and efficient remediation.
- Robust Threat Detection: Clutch detects suspicious activity in real-time to quickly identify and prevent misuse or unauthorized access before it escalates into incidents.
- Zero Trust Controls: Clutch extends Zero Trust principles to NHIs by ensuring continuous monitoring and validation of every NHI interaction.
With Clutch, organizations gain proactive control over NHI security, reducing risks and enhancing operational efficiency.
Conclusion
Non-human identities are critical assets—and potential security risks. Understanding their types, challenges, and best practices for management and security enables security teams to strengthen defenses against evolving threats.
Clutch’s innovative platform helps you stay resilient and secure in today’s digital-first world.
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