Identity security is a production asset in manufacturing

At a glance

What this is: This is an analysis of why manufacturing environments should treat identity security as part of production resilience, with the central finding that unclear identity ownership can delay incident response and extend downtime.

Why it matters: For IAM and NHI practitioners, it shows that access governance in IT/OT environments affects uptime, not just security hygiene, so ownership and revocation decisions must be preplanned.

👉 Read CyberArk's analysis of identity security as a production asset in manufacturing

Context

Manufacturing identity security is no longer just an IT concern because production now depends on machine, vendor, and system identities that cross both OT and enterprise networks. When identity ownership is unclear, operators can lose minutes deciding who can isolate a system, revoke access, or keep a process running safely.

The article argues that the governance gap appears at the worst possible moment: when a production incident demands fast, authorized action. That is a familiar NHI problem, because machine identities often outnumber human ones and are frequently managed without the same ownership, lifecycle, and offboarding discipline as people accounts.

Key questions

Q: How should manufacturing teams govern machine identities in production environments?

A: Manufacturing teams should govern machine identities as operational assets, not just credentials. Every identity that can start, stop, monitor, or alter production should have an accountable owner, a defined purpose, and a revocation path that is tested against plant procedures. The goal is to reduce hesitation during incidents and keep security actions aligned with safe operations.

Q: Why do identity issues cause more downtime in manufacturing than teams expect?

A: Identity issues cause downtime because they create decision latency. When responders cannot quickly confirm ownership, scope, or safe revocation steps, they spend the first minutes negotiating authority instead of containing impact. In manufacturing, that delay affects uptime directly because access decisions can change production state, vendor support, or safety controls.

Q: What is the difference between access visibility and access authority?

A: Access visibility tells you which identities exist and are active. Access authority tells you who is allowed to change, revoke, or preserve that access during an incident. Manufacturing programs often have the first but not the second, which is why teams can see a risk and still be unable to act quickly enough to reduce downtime.

Q: When should organisations use just-in-time access for manufacturing identities?

A: Organisations should use just-in-time access for identities that support temporary maintenance, vendor support, or emergency intervention. JIT is most valuable when standing access would create unnecessary blast radius. It works best when the approval path, session duration, and rollback steps are pre-defined and tied to production schedules and safety requirements.

Technical breakdown

Why machine identities create an uptime dependency

In manufacturing, machine identities are not peripheral credentials. They are the authentication layer that lets controllers, vendors, automation systems, and applications exchange commands and data across IT and OT. When those identities are embedded in production workflows, access decisions become operational decisions. If an account cannot be safely revoked, or if nobody knows who owns it, the response path slows down even when the technical incident is contained. The core issue is not authentication alone, but the lack of explicit authority mapped to each identity.

Practical implication: Treat every production identity as part of the control plane, not as an administrative afterthought.

What breaks when identity ownership is undefined

Undefined ownership creates decision latency. During an incident, teams may know a system is risky but not know whether revoking the associated account will interrupt safety interlocks, vendor support, or scheduled production tasks. That uncertainty is amplified in converged environments where IT and OT teams use different operating assumptions. The result is a governance gap: visibility may exist, but action authority does not. In practice, that means the clock is running while people are still verifying who is allowed to act.

Practical implication: Build pre-approved ownership and escalation paths for every high-value machine, vendor, and service identity.

How identity governance changes in IT/OT convergence

IT/OT convergence does not eliminate the need for segmentation, but it does change what the control point is. Identity policies must account for production schedules, vendor access windows, break-glass procedures, and isolation decisions that can affect physical processes. Traditional IAM controls often assume business applications, not live production systems with safety dependencies. In that environment, identity governance has to be operationally aware, with clear rules for when access can be revoked immediately and when it requires coordinated action.

Practical implication: Align identity governance with production runbooks so security actions do not collide with safety or uptime requirements.

Breaches seen in the wild

• Cisco DevHub NHI breach — IntelBroker exploited exposed Cisco credentials, API tokens and keys in DevHub.
• Schneider Electric credentials breach — exposed credentials gave attackers access to Schneider Electric Jira, exfiltrating 40GB.

Read our 52 NHI Breaches Analysis report for a comprehensive view of breaches impacting Non-Human Identities including AI Agents.

NHI Mgmt Group analysis

Identity ambiguity is a downtime accelerator in manufacturing. When production teams cannot quickly determine who owns an active account, incident response slows before containment even begins. The problem is not just a missing record, but a missing decision model for who may isolate, revoke, or preserve access under pressure. Practitioners should treat identity ownership as an operational dependency, not a documentation exercise.

Machine identities need the same governance discipline as physical assets. Production equipment is tracked because it directly affects output, and machine identities deserve the same treatment because they directly affect control and continuity. If a service account or vendor credential can start, stop, or alter production, it belongs inside asset governance, lifecycle review, and revocation planning. Practitioners should map these identities to business-critical processes, then assign accountable owners.

Zero standing privilege matters in OT-adjacent environments because access uncertainty is expensive. Standing access may look convenient until a production incident forces a difficult choice between continuity and containment. In those moments, persistent access widens blast radius and increases hesitation. A named concept here is the identity authority gap: the time lost because visibility exists but no one is pre-authorized to act. Practitioners should close that gap before the next outage.

Manufacturing security programs should shift from account inventory to action readiness. Knowing an identity exists is not enough if the team cannot decide in seconds whether to isolate it, suspend it, or leave it active. The field needs governance that includes ownership, escalation, and emergency revocation logic. Practitioners should test whether their identity controls support live production decisions, not only audit evidence.

From our research:

• 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
• Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, which helps explain why incident teams struggle to act quickly during production disruptions.
• That visibility gap is why the The 52 NHI breaches Report is a useful next resource for understanding how weak identity governance becomes breach impact.

What this signals

Identity governance in manufacturing is becoming an uptime discipline. As OT and IT converge, the operational question is no longer whether identities exist, but whether responders can make safe access decisions quickly enough to avoid extending downtime. Programs that still treat machine and vendor accounts as back-office issues will continue to discover their limits during incidents.

With 96% of organisations storing secrets outside of secrets managers in vulnerable locations including code, config files, and CI/CD tools, the broader identity problem is already systemic, not isolated. Manufacturing teams should expect similar leakage patterns wherever production scripts, automation, and vendor support paths intersect, then design controls accordingly.

The next phase of manufacturing identity security will be measured by response readiness, not just inventory quality. Teams that predefine authority, shrink standing access, and tie identities to recovery runbooks will recover faster because they remove the first-minute ambiguity that causes the most expensive delays.

For practitioners

• Map every production identity to a business owner Build a register that ties machine, vendor, service, and operator identities to named owners, supported systems, and approved response paths. Include which identities can affect safety interlocks, production scheduling, or remote support.
• Pre-authorise incident decisions for critical accounts Define who can isolate, suspend, or preserve each high-risk identity during a plant incident. Use explicit escalation rules so responders do not spend the first minutes validating authority.
• Align revocation steps with production runbooks Document when account revocation is safe, when it requires coordinated operations approval, and which systems must remain reachable for safe shutdown or recovery.
• Apply least privilege to vendor and service access Limit access windows, scope, and session duration for external support and automation identities. Remove standing access where possible and make emergency access traceable and time-bound.

Key takeaways

• Manufacturing downtime can begin with identity confusion, because teams lose time determining who is authorised to isolate, revoke, or preserve access.
• Machine and vendor identities should be governed as production assets, since they directly affect uptime, safety, and recovery decisions.
• Pre-authorised ownership, least privilege, and incident-ready revocation paths are the controls that reduce identity-driven downtime.

Key terms

• Machine Identity: A machine identity is a credentialed non-human identity used by systems, devices, services, or automation to authenticate and exchange data. In manufacturing, these identities often control production steps, vendor access, or monitoring functions, which makes ownership and revocation part of operational continuity, not just security administration.
• Identity Authority Gap: The identity authority gap is the delay that occurs when a team can see an access risk but cannot quickly determine who is authorised to act on it. In production environments, that gap turns into downtime because isolation, revocation, and recovery decisions depend on pre-approved authority, not just technical visibility.
• Converged IT/OT Environment: A converged IT/OT environment is one where enterprise systems and operational technology share networks, services, or access paths. That convergence creates more identity touchpoints, so access governance must account for both cybersecurity controls and production safety requirements at the same time.

Deepen your knowledge

Identity governance in manufacturing environments is a core topic in our NHI Foundation Level course, the industry's only accredited NHI security programme. If you are building a production-aware identity programme, it is worth exploring.

This post draws on content published by CyberArk: Why identity security is a production asset in manufacturing. Read the original.