IAM lifecycle management and NHI sprawl: what teams are missing

TL;DR: IAM lifecycle management is often weaker than access management itself for non-human identities, and the gap widens as NHIs outnumber people and spread across clouds, vaults, and third parties, according to Entro Security. The lifecycle, not just the permission model, is where exposure, drift, and offboarding failures turn into practical risk.

NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Entro Security: IAM lifecycle management, NHIs and zero-trust

By the numbers:

• NHIs outnumber human identities by 25x to 50x in modern enterprises.
• Only 20% have formal processes for offboarding and revoking API keys, and even fewer have procedures for rotating them.
• 96% of organisations store secrets outside of secrets managers in vulnerable locations including code, config files, and CI/CD tools.

Questions worth separating out

Q: How should security teams govern non-human identities across the full lifecycle?

A: Security teams should govern non-human identities as living assets with owner, purpose, expiry, review, rotation, and retirement controls.

Q: Why do NHIs create more lifecycle risk than human accounts?

A: NHIs often outnumber human identities, change faster, and are copied into more systems.

Q: What breaks when organisations treat secrets storage as lifecycle management?

A: Storage solves retention, not governance.

Practitioner guidance

• Build a complete NHI lifecycle inventory Track each non-human identity from creation to retirement, including owner, purpose, storage location, last use, and revocation status.
• Separate vault storage from lifecycle governance Treat vaults, scanners, and secret stores as control points, not as lifecycle managers.
• Enforce revocation at relationship end For vendors, contractors, and integrations, tie access removal to contract closure, system decommissioning, or role change.

What's in the full article

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

• A lifecycle management walkthrough for provisioning, rotation, offboarding, and decommissioning across NHIs.
• Practical examples of how to apply JIT, ABAC, and zero-trust policy to machine identities in cloud environments.
• The vendor's discussion of common NHI failure points such as exposed secrets, third-party access, and centralized visibility gaps.
• Implementation-oriented guidance on how to move from secrets storage to lifecycle enforcement.

👉 Read Entro Security's blog on IAM lifecycle management for NHIs and zero trust →

IAM lifecycle management and NHI sprawl: what teams are missing?

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