CISO's guide: Securing nonhuman identities at scale

Nonhuman identities (NHIs)—like service accounts, API keys, and workload identities—outnumber human accounts by 10x to 50x in many organizations. Yet they remain poorly governed, creating security gaps as organizations adopt cloud, automation, and AI.

This white paper examines the challenges of securing NHIs and offers strategies for managing these digital actors. Topics include:

· Differences between machine identities and modern NHIs
· Vulnerabilities like excessive privileges, hardcoded credentials, and lack of baselines
· Frameworks for classification, least-privilege enforcement, and lifecycle automation

Strengthen identity governance for a world driven by autonomous systems.