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25/06/2026 10:29 pm
TL;DR: Non-human identities now appear across service accounts, API keys, tokens, certificates, and machine workflows, yet many programmes still fail to classify them consistently, according to Orchid Security. The practical issue is not discovery alone but lifecycle control, because visibility without ownership, rotation, and offboarding leaves standing access in place.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Orchid Security: 6 ways to identify non-human identities (NHIs)
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams identify non-human identities across cloud and application environments?
A: Start by tracing where credentials are actually used, not only where they are stored.
Q: Why do non-human identities create more governance risk than most teams expect?
A: Because they often exist outside human identity processes and persist long after the reason for creation has changed.
Q: What do security teams get wrong about NHI discovery?
A: They often treat discovery as the finish line.
Practitioner guidance
- Map every discovered NHI to an accountable owner Require a named business or system owner for each service account, token, API key, certificate, or agent credential, and block any asset that cannot be assigned before production use.
- Inventory authentication points, not just stored credentials Correlate vaults, source code, CI/CD pipelines, cloud consoles, and runtime logs so the same NHI can be traced from creation to actual use.
- Tie identification to rotation and revocation workflows Once an NHI is found, record its purpose, expiry condition, and revocation route so discovery immediately supports lifecycle control rather than remaining a static list.
What's in the full article
Orchid Security's full post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- A practical breakdown of how to spot NHIs across application, infrastructure, and automation layers.
- Specific identification patterns for service accounts, API keys, tokens, and certificates in real environments.
- The vendor's framing of common discovery gaps and how teams can close them during implementation.
- Context for practitioners building an internal NHI inventory or governance workflow.
👉 Read Orchid Security's post on 6 ways to identify non-human identities →
Non-human identities: what IAM teams are missing in practice?
Explore further
25/06/2026 11:01 pm
Identification is not the control, it is the dependency map. NHI discovery matters because every downstream control depends on knowing what exists, who owns it, and where it is used. A programme that cannot identify NHIs reliably cannot rotate, certify, or revoke them with confidence. The practitioner takeaway is that identification should be measured by control enablement, not by inventory volume.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 71% of NHIs are not rotated within recommended time frames, increasing the risk of compromise over time, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, which shows how often discovery and control remain disconnected.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How do autonomous identities change NHI governance decisions?
A: Autonomous identities can change tools, access paths, and timing at runtime, so they cannot be governed as static service accounts. Teams need to classify them separately and judge whether the access model assumes a fixed identity state. If it does, the review process will miss real behaviour.
👉 Read our full editorial: 6 ways to identify non-human identities in identity security
