Topic starter
24/06/2026 3:04 pm
TL;DR: ISO 27001 links access control, cryptographic controls, operational security, supplier relationships, and incident management to non-human identities such as service accounts, API keys, tokens, certificates, and automation tools, according to Entro Security. The governance gap is that machine identities are often over-privileged, long-lived, and under-monitored, so compliance depends on treating them as first-class identities rather than edge cases.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Entro Security: “Securing NHIs and ISO 27001 Compliance: The Critical Link for Protecting Your Organization’s Information”.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when service account lifecycle controls are missing in an ISO 27001 environment?
A: The ISMS can still exist on paper, but the organisation loses the ability to prove that access is limited, reviewable, and removed when no longer needed.
Q: Why do long-lived machine credentials create more risk than short-lived access?
A: Long-lived machine credentials create more risk because they can be copied, reused, and forgotten across pipelines and infrastructure.
Q: What are the signs that a non-human identity program is failing?
A: A failing program usually looks organized on paper but inactive in practice.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory every non-human identity in scope Build a current register of service accounts, API keys, tokens, certificates, automation users, and third-party credentials, then assign an owner and a purpose to each one.
- Apply least privilege to machine access Review each identity's permissions against the task it actually performs and remove access paths that are not required for the workload or integration.
- Rotate and retire long-lived secrets Set rotation and expiration rules for machine credentials, and disable or delete identities that are inactive, orphaned, or no longer tied to a valid use case.
Bottom line: ISO 27001 compliance is incomplete when service accounts, API keys, tokens, and certificates sit outside the same governance model used for human identities.
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This topic was modified 7 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group
25/06/2026 2:13 am
ISO 27001's identity model is incomplete until machine identities are governed as identities. The standard is often interpreted through human access patterns, but the article shows that service accounts, API keys, tokens, and certificates sit inside the same control plane. If an organisation can audit people but not automation, it does not yet have a complete ISMS view. Practitioners should treat NHI inventory and lifecycle control as part of ISO 27001 evidence, not as an adjacent operations task.
A few things that frame the scale:
- NHIs outnumber human identities by 25x to 50x in modern enterprises, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How should teams handle third-party machine access under ISO 27001?
A: Treat supplier-issued tokens, service accounts, and API keys as scoped access that must expire, be monitored, and be revoked when the commercial or technical relationship changes. Supplier governance only works when offboarding includes credential removal, not just contract closure or ticket closure.
👉 Read our full editorial: Securing NHIs for ISO 27001 compliance: the control gap
This post was modified 7 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group