How to Govern Static and Federated Non-Human Identities

Read full article here: https://www.oasis.security/blog/governing-static-dynamic-nhi-mix/?source=nhimg

As enterprises scale into cloud-first and AI-driven environments, identity security is no longer limited to humans. The rise of Non-Human Identities (NHIs) like service accounts, API keys, bots, workloads, and now agentic AI, has introduced an entirely new attack surface.

Static credentials (long-lived passwords, API tokens, certificates) remain pervasive, yet they are poorly aligned with modern infrastructures. Meanwhile, federated, ephemeral, and dynamic identity systems are gaining traction but cannot fully replace static constructs overnight. Most enterprises will run a hybrid mix of static and federated identities for years, making governance, visibility, and continuous privilege reduction the real challenge.

Why Static Credentials Fail Modern Security

• Persistence = Exposure - Long-lived keys and tokens often linger long past their intended use. IBM’s 2024 report found that static credentials contributed to 60% of cloud-related breaches, costing on average $4.81M per incident.

• Attackers Exploit Stagnation - Orphaned accounts, hardcoded API keys, and unrotated secrets become easy entry points. Public repos and collaboration platforms are actively scanned for exposed secrets.

• Lateral Movement - Once compromised, static credentials enable attackers to pivot across cloud and SaaS systems, exploiting over-privileged accounts and weak trust boundaries.

Dynamic Identity: The Direction of Travel

Ephemeral, policy-driven access should be the default wherever possible. Leading approaches include:

• Ephemeral Tokens - Cloud-native short-lived credentials (e.g., AWS IAM Roles, Azure Managed Identities, GCP Workload Federation).
• Policy-Based Access Controls - Context-aware, zero-trust rules granting access only under defined conditions.
• Just-in-Time Provisioning & Zero Standing Privilege (ZSP) - Time-boxed credentials automatically issued and revoked, shrinking the attack window.
• Federation & Service Mesh - SPIFFE/SPIRE or Istio/Consul enable workload-to-workload mTLS and federated identities across clusters.

These methods drastically reduce the utility of stolen credentials by making them short-lived, tightly scoped, and continuously verified.

When Static Still Makes Sense (and How to Manage It)

Legacy systems, vendor APIs, OT/air-gapped environments, and cross-org workflows may still require static secrets. In these cases:

• Centralize in vaults never in code, chat, or images.
• Assign clear ownership with documented purpose and lifecycle plan.
• Enforce least privilege and network restrictions.
• Automate rotation and expiry.
• Continuously monitor for anomalies and practice revocation drills.

Governance Imperatives

A secure future requires managing both static and dynamic identities under one governance model:

1. Continuous Discovery - Map every secret, workload, and API key to an owner and purpose.
2. Migration Paths - Automate cutovers from static to federated/ephemeral identities safely and incrementally.
3. Lifecycle Management - Provision securely, rotate automatically, and decommission unused credentials.
4. Real-Time Threat Detection - Use anomaly detection and AI-driven analytics to spot compromised NHIs at machine speed.
5. Unified Policy Enforcement - Apply consistent least-privilege and zero-trust rules across human, non-human, and AI agents.

Oasis Security’s Approach

The Oasis NHI Security Cloud accelerates this governance journey by:

• Automating discovery and mapping of all NHIs across hybrid/multi-cloud.
• Orchestrating safe migrations to federated and ephemeral identity models.
• Enforcing least privilege and continuous credential rotation for static holdouts.
• Delivering AI-driven real-time detection (ITDR) of anomalous identity activity.
• Supporting post-secret architectures designed around federation and dynamic authentication.

Bottom line

Static credentials will persist for years, but governance, not avoidance, is the key. Enterprises must shrink their reliance on static constructs while accelerating adoption of federated and dynamic authentication. The organizations that succeed will treat ephemeral, policy-driven access as the baseline and static credentials as legacy liabilities being actively reduced. By governing the mix today, enterprises can future-proof identity security against tomorrow’s AI-driven threats.