Non-human identity (NHI) management is the discovery, vaulting, and governance of the identities that machines and other non-human entities of your IT environment use to authenticate each other and communicate between themselves.
To understand better how non-human identities are manged, let's first understand what non-human identities are.
Through the different rungs of an IT system, machines and workloads interact across multiple levels and functions. During this interaction, the credentials with which these machines and workloads identify, authenticate, and refer to one another is termed as a non-human identity, or an NHI.
To put it simply, any digital identity that a human is not directly accountable for falls under the umbrella of non-human identities.
Almost every user involved in an IT system can be classified as a human, non-human, or machine identity. Human identities, as the name suggests, are inherently easy to identify, given their direct link to a human person. However, distinguishing between machine identities and non-human identities is a little more complex as these terms are often used interchangeably.
In reality, machine identities are a subset of non-human identities. Machine identities, by definition, primarily cover the credentials of devices and machines involved in an IT environment. Meanwhile, non-human identities extend to encompass services, applications, and other automated workloads involved as well.
With the growing adoption of cloud-based applications, AI, and automation, the number of non-human identities continue to grow exponentially. Here are some of the most common instances of non-human identities.
Ensuring that applications that wish to access a certain dataset or perform a particular privileged operation that falls beyond the boundaries of their default permissions are authorized to do so is a crucial aspect of enterprise IT security. This is where API keys come in. Similar to passwords, in every instance where a service or an application requires access to privileged information, an API key is assigned to the service making the request. Once the key is verified, the service is then allowed to proceed with its function.
Given the increase in use of cloud-based applications and services, and the necessity for these non-human identities to ensure secure interactions, managing API keys can be paramount in upholding the security of a business process.
When human users need access to privileged information, they set up accounts for identification and passwords for authorization. Similarly, machines or applications also require accounts—known as service accounts—to establish their identity. However, instead of passwords, they use methods like OAuth tokens or certificates to be authenticated.
Whenever a process is automated, non-human identities are inevitably created to ensure secure and seamless operation without human interference. CI/CD pipelines and DevOps tools, which are designed to automate the various stages in the software development life cycle, are naturally a beehive of non-human identities.
CI/CD pipelines automate the integration of code changes made by the dev team as well as the delivery of a product to the staging environment after running tests to confirm it is functional. DevOps tools, on the other hand, control a series of bots that build, test, deploy, and monitor the code through the system.
Network devices and other physical endpoints that require network connectivity, like printers, sensors, routers, and switches, need to authenticate themselves within the network itself. They often use credentials like certificates to establish secure connections.
Similarly, applications, whether web- or device-based, also require non-human identities to access resources and to communicate with servers and databases. Often, at the enterprise level, business applications use OAuth tokens and service accounts, which have access to highly privileged information, to authenticate themselves.
The essence of automation is to negate the need for humans to do mundane repetitive tasks. Robotic process automation was designed for this very reason. Performing simple rule-based tasks that require no advanced logical processes means that these operations are less prone to errors. It also means these bots can be used in processes that are highly secure, giving them elevated levels of access and making their management all the more necessary.
From customer service chatbots to DevOps automation scripts, AI agents are heavily involved in IT workflows. These non-human identities operate autonomously, making decisions and executing tasks for which they use tokens to verify their identity when accessing privileged resources. Given their high levels of access and the volume of sensitive actions they perform, they are prime targets for threat actors and must be secured.
Non-human identities are present during any instance where machines, applications, and other automated processes interact with each other or with human users, including servers, virtual machines, and APIs. Additionally, cloud services like AWS, Google, and Azure often employ these NHIs to manage virtual resources and to manage automated tasks. As businesses increasingly move towards hybrid workflows, the sheer usage and volume of of NHIs also continues to grow.
Now that we know the prominent areas where NHIs are used, employing methods to effectively manage them are important. This means taking a proactive approach to identify and monitor them while also implementing best practices to ensure NHIs are secured.
Modern IT environments are increasingly defined by automation, cloud services, and interconnected applications. This shift has led to an explosion in the number of non-human identities, each with the potential to access sensitive resources. Effective NHI management is essential to prevent credential sprawl, enforce security best practices, and maintain visibility over privileged operations. By securing these identities, organizations reduce their attack surface, safeguard critical data, and ensure compliance with industry regulations, all while supporting seamless automated workflows.
Managing non-human identities comes with unique challenges that differ significantly from human account management. These identities often operate at high scale, with thousands of API keys, service accounts, and automation scripts needing secure oversight. Many credentials are hard-coded, shared between systems, or lack proper rotation, increasing the risk of compromise. Visibility is another key challenge, as non-human identities can proliferate across hybrid and multi-cloud environments without clear ownership or monitoring. Without centralized management, organizations face gaps in security, difficulties in auditing, and increased risk of breaches from overlooked or misused credentials.
The vast access privileges that most non-human identities enjoy means that a single account being compromised could have disproportionately large consequences.
As enterprises move towards cloud-based systems and automated workflows, the number of non-human identities in use grows rapidly. As is the case with any other vulnerability in cybersecurity, the larger the surface area, the easier it is for threat actors to compromise accounts. By not securing these NHIs, the number of entry points for security breaches increases rapidly.
Poorly managed NHIs often come with poorly protected credentials. Secrets like API keys or tokens are hard-coded into scripts or stored in unsecured locations, with no visibility or control. Without centralized oversight, these credentials go unmonitored, aren't regularly rotated, and frequently have more access than necessary. Not only does this expose privileged resources to threat actors, it also makes breaches harder to detect.
Security and compliance teams can’t protect what they can’t see. A lack of clear visibility and control over NHIs makes it difficult to track their actions, leaving audit trails incomplete. This undermines the security policies of an organization while also opening up compliance issues with industry standards like the GDPR, SOX, or HIPAA.
Monitoring NHI accounts poses unique challenges when compared to their human counterparts. While human user activity is rather predictable and limited in scope, non-human identities have a much wider range of capabilities and functions, meaning it is significantly harder to identify suspicious activity in them.
Effective management of NHIs directly impacts the security level of a company's privileged resources; however, the benefits extend far wider than just this. The overall efficiency of a system that manages its non-human identities effectively is much higher, since the processes involved are automated.
Another positive that a good NHI management system offers is that it helps businesses ensure they're complying with regulations and standards. It also significantly improves the auditing process, as the non-human identities are much easier to track when using it.
Utilizing a PAM tool to manage non-human identities reduces risk from attackers and increases your organization's efficiency in managing automated processes. PAM360, ManageEngine's privileged access management tool, provides a well-rounded method to monitor, protect, and control non-human identities by providing services that help secure these NHIs.
Managing non-human identities starts with discovering them. An updated inventory of all NHIs involved in an organization's workflow is crucial to ensuring that all identities are secured, with no dormant accounts or identities left unmonitored. PAM360 automates this discovery process by regularly identifying the various endpoints in a workflow and enumerating the privileged accounts associated with it.
Once all non-human identities are identified, securing them is the next step in their management. PAM360 offers a secure, centralized vault where all non-human identities involved in an organizations workflow can be stored, automatically rotated, and controlled in a secure manner. This removes the need to hard-code secrets and improves visibility and control over privileged access.
Since these non-human identities largely operate autonomously, it is important that their access is limited to what their function requires to prevent privilege abuse in the case of a breach. With PAM360, enforcing least privileges for non-human Identities is both simple and scalable. It allows for role-based access controls and just-in-time access, practices that increase NHI security without compromising on workflow efficiency.
Reducing the window available for threat actors to attack reduces the risk of security breaches significantly. By automating password rotation, PAM360 ensures that once every privileged task is completed, the credentials used during that session are promptly rotated, safeguarding the organization from unhygienic password sharing, privilege abuse, and more.
Preventive measures like password rotation help protect identities, but in the unfortunate scenario of an attack occurring, it is important to be able to trace back to where the breach took place and who was responsible for it. By tracking both human and non-human activity and logging it, PAM360 provides detailed audit reports, enabling organizations to strengthen security and improve compliance.
Non-human identities often operate autonomously at massive scale across systems, cloud services, and automation workflows.
Unlike human accounts, they lack clear ownership and can multiply rapidly without centralized oversight.
Unmanaged NHIs create hidden entry points that attackers can exploit to gain privileged access to critical systems. They also increase the chance of credential leaks, privilege abuse, and undetected lateral movement within your network.
Yes. Just-in-time access works seamlessly on cloud-native environments as well, ensuring secure and time-bound access to privileged resources.
Rapid automation and continuous deployment create thousands of short-lived credentials and tokens. Without governance, tracking, rotating, and securing these identities becomes impossible, exposing critical pipelines to breaches.
Lack of visibility and control over non-human identities leads to incomplete audit trails and unmonitored access. This can result in compliance failures with regulations like GDPR, SOX, and HIPAA, and increased risk of penalties.
Lack of visibility and control over non-human identities leads to incomplete audit trails and unmonitored access. This can result in compliance failures with regulations like GDPR, SOX, and HIPAA, and increased risk of penalties.