NHI security risks and controls: what teams need to fix now

TL;DR: Non-human identities outnumber human identities by over 92:1 and are attacked far more often, according to Unosecur, so IAM teams need stronger visibility, lifecycle control, and monitoring across cloud and on-premises environments. The real issue is not just credential sprawl but governance that still assumes machine access behaves like human access.

NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Unosecur: Securing non-human identities: Part 3 - strategies to avert and mitigate NHI security risks

By the numbers:

• Non-human identities outnumber human identities in modern enterprises by over 92:1.
• The risk of NHIs being attacked outweighs that on human identities by as much as 17 to 1.

Questions worth separating out

Q: How should security teams govern non-human identities across cloud and on-premises environments?

A: They should use one governance model for both environments, with shared ownership, consistent entitlement rules, and unified logging.

Q: Why do service accounts and API keys create outsized risk when they are overprivileged?

A: Because a single credential can unlock more systems than the workload actually needs, turning one compromise into broader access.

Q: What breaks when machine credentials are not rotated or decommissioned on time?

A: Old credentials remain valid after the business reason for them has ended, which gives attackers more time to find and reuse them.

Practitioner guidance

• Inventory every machine identity Build a single register of service accounts, API keys, tokens, certificates, bots, and workload credentials across cloud, on-premises, and third-party integrations so ownership and purpose are visible.
• Reduce every entitlement to task scope Re-map broad machine permissions to the smallest access set needed for each application, API, or pipeline stage, and remove inherited roles that were added for convenience.
• Automate de-provisioning and rotation Tie credential creation to expiry, offboarding, and rotation workflows so stale secrets are removed when a workload is retired or an integration changes.

What's in the full article

Unosecur's full blog covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:

• A step-by-step breakdown of IAM and PAM controls for service accounts, API keys, tokens, and certificates.
• Specific examples of lifecycle automation for provisioning, de-provisioning, and credential rotation in hybrid environments.
• Practical monitoring and incident-response patterns for detecting abnormal NHI activity before it spreads.
• Case examples showing how organisations improved posture after a compromise, including recovery steps and control changes.

👉 Read Unosecur's guide to securing non-human identities and reducing NHI risk →

NHI security risks and controls: what teams need to fix now?

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