Enterprise Concerns Over Securing Non-Human Identities
Organizations are increasingly challenged by the rapid proliferation of non-human identities (NHIs), such as service accounts, API keys, digital certificates, access tokens, automated bots, IoT devices, and AI agents. More than half of enterprises surveyed express uncertainty about their ability to secure these NHIs, highlighting a significant gap between the adoption of automated digital identities and the maturity of tools and processes to protect them. The complexity and diversity of NHIs, which now form the backbone of modern digital infrastructure, have outpaced traditional identity and access management strategies, leaving organizations exposed to new risks.
The exponential growth of NHIs, especially in cloud-native and automated environments, has led to a situation where non-human accounts vastly outnumber human users. This expansion, combined with issues like "secrets sprawl"—where credentials are scattered across codebases and pipelines—creates opportunities for account hijacking, privilege escalation, and lateral movement by threat actors. Security experts emphasize the need for unified visibility, consistent identity policies, and automated responses to address these risks, particularly as NHIs and AI agents become more integral to business operations and the attack surface continues to expand.
Timeline
Apr 9, 2026
2026 SANS survey finds NHI growth outpacing governance controls
IT Pro reports findings from the 2026 SANS Identity Threats & Defences Survey showing 76% of organizations have increased non-human identity use, while 92% do not rotate credentials on a 90-day cycle. The survey also highlights rising risk from agentic AI deployments that require credentials and autonomous access, with no single safeguard used by more than 40% of organizations.
Nov 26, 2025
Dark Reading reports enterprise lack of confidence in securing NHIs
Dark Reading publishes coverage focused on enterprises' lack of confidence in their ability to secure non-human identities. The report reflects mounting concern over managing and protecting machine, service, and workload identities at scale.
Nov 26, 2025
SC Media outlines identity security strategy for human and non-human identities
An SC Media perspective article describes growing risk from fragmented identity infrastructures, especially the proliferation of non-human identities such as service accounts, AI agents, and cloud workloads. It recommends unified visibility, consistent policy enforcement, automated response, and continuous validation across the full identity estate.
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