How to Secure Non-Human Identities and AI Agents in the Agentic AI Era

Read full article here: https://www.token.security/blog/why-we-backed-token-security-securing-non-human-identities-for-the-agentic-ai-era/?utm_source=nhimg

Enterprises are entering a new frontier — one where non-human identities (NHIs) and agentic AI systems now form the backbone of digital operations. While Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) have spent decades refining Identity and Access Management (IAM) programs for human users, the unseen majority of machine-based identities — service accounts, APIs, workloads, and autonomous agents — has quietly grown out of control.

In many organizations, NHIs now outnumber humans by more than 45:1, yet most lack clear ownership, lifecycle management, or visibility. Created dynamically in code and often persisting far beyond their intended use, these identities accumulate excessive privileges and form hidden attack paths across critical environments.

The result: unchecked privilege sprawl, identity blind spots, and a rapidly expanding attack surface.

The Growing Threat of Unmanaged NHIs

Recent high-profile incidents, including the Midnight Blizzard OAuth attack on Microsoft and breaches at Snowflake, Uber, and Okta, have one common thread — compromised machine identities. These events demonstrate that NHI exploitation is no longer theoretical; it is a real and escalating enterprise risk.

As the world transitions toward agentic AI, where autonomous systems act, decide, and execute tasks across multi-cloud and SaaS ecosystems, the need for NHI governance becomes existential. Without it, AI-driven automation risks becoming AI-driven exposure.

Why SVCI Focused on NHI Security

Recognizing the urgency of this shift, the Silicon Valley CISO Investments (SVCI) network dedicated an entire diligence cycle to Non-Human Identity Security — a thematic deep dive into startups addressing this structural security gap.

Over six weeks, SVCI evaluated multiple innovators across machine identity management, workload enforcement, and service mesh integrations. The outcome was clear: Token Security stood out as the company best positioned to tackle the modern NHI challenge.

Their differentiation lies in three critical dimensions:

• Problem Fit: Every CISO surveyed identified NHI blind spots as a top operational risk.
• Technical Depth: Token Security’s contextual discovery and lifecycle-first design reflect how NHIs actually behave in real enterprise systems.
• Founder-Market Fit: A team with hands-on expertise in securing ephemeral, machine-native environments.

What Makes Token Security Unique

Token Security treats non-human identities as first-class citizens within the enterprise security stack — not afterthoughts. Its platform delivers full-spectrum protection through a unique NHI Risk Graph, connecting every machine identity to its origin, purpose, and owner.

Core capabilities include:

• Contextual Discovery: Mapping every identity to its source code, IaC template, and entitlements.
• Lifecycle Governance: Automating ownership assignment, least privilege enforcement, and safe deprovisioning.
• Machine-Native Detection: Using behavioral analytics to identify misuse, secrets abuse, and privilege anomalies.
• Automated Response: Integrating with SIEM, SOAR, and XDR systems for instant remediation without slowing operations.

This holistic approach unifies discovery, governance, compliance, posture management, and detection — transforming NHI security from reactive defense into a control plane for secure, scalable AI adoption.

Future-Proofing for the Agentic AI Era

The coming wave of autonomous AI agents will exponentially increase identity volume and complexity. These agents will spin up infrastructure, execute tasks, and interface with external APIs — often without direct human oversight.

Without robust lifecycle controls and runtime authorization, this dynamic activity creates a new breed of machine identity risk. Token Security’s platform is natively designed to secure AI agents alongside traditional NHIs, providing continuous visibility, context, and enforcement across all identities — human, machine, and autonomous.

This positions Token Security as a critical enabler of responsible AI adoption, ensuring that innovation does not come at the cost of governance.

Why SVCI Invested

SVCI’s investment in Token Security was driven by conviction across three pillars:

1. Criticality: The NHI problem affects every enterprise, and the risks are compounding rapidly.
2. Practicality: Token Security integrates seamlessly with existing IAM and DevSecOps workflows.
3. Execution: The founding team combines technical precision with the clarity needed to define a new security category.

Token Security is not chasing trends — it is solving the structural identity problem of the AI era. As AI agents continue to reshape enterprise operations, Token Security’s vision represents the future of machine identity resilience and trust.

The Takeaway

As the enterprise perimeter dissolves and AI autonomy accelerates, Non-Human Identity Security becomes the foundation for digital trust. Visibility, ownership, and governance are no longer optional — they are prerequisites for safe innovation.

SVCI’s bet on Token Security signals a turning point: the shift from securing humans to securing everything that acts on behalf of humans.

In the Agentic AI era, the organizations that master this shift will be the ones that thrive.