What is a Non-Human Identity?
Non Human Identities represent one of the fastest-growing and most undermanaged areas of identity security. Every application, automated script, API, microservice, and machine that needs to authenticate and access resources in an IT environment requires its own digital identity and in a modern enterprise, these machine identities typically outnumber human identities by a significant margin. Unlike human users who log in interactively, NHIs often operate continuously in the background, using API keys, service account credentials, certificates, or tokens. Because they are less visible and often managed inconsistently, NHIs are frequently exploited by attackers. A mature IAM program must include discovery, governance, and rotation of non-human identities alongside human ones.