CISOs Role in Managing IAM - Including Non-Human Identities

Read full article here: https://blog.gitguardian.com/role-of-cisos-iam-nhi/?source=nhimg

In today’s threat landscape, identity is the number one attack surface—and yet, most IAM strategies still focus solely on human users. That’s a critical oversight.

In 2025, non-human identities (NHIs) like service accounts, API keys, and AI agents outnumber humans by 45 to 1. These machine identities now power everything from DevOps pipelines to autonomous AI—but they’re rarely governed, tracked, or secured at the level they should be. This blind spot is putting entire enterprises at risk.

This article unpacks why CISOs must take ownership of NHI governance as part of their broader IAM strategy. It explores:

• Why human-centric IAM no longer suffices in the age of automation

• How NHI mismanagement leads to real-world breaches and regulatory risk

• Why zero trust and compliance frameworks fall apart without machine identity visibility

• What a unified IAM strategy looks like when it includes humans and machines

The path forward? Security-first identity governance that includes:

• Comprehensive discovery and mapping of NHIs
• Centralized secrets management across all vaults
• Automated lifecycle management and rotation
• Least privilege enforcement and continuous monitoring
• Integration into Zero Trust architectures

If CISOs don’t own non-human identity governance, no one will—and attackers are counting on it.

With tools like GitGuardian’s NHI Security, security leaders can finally see, secure, and govern the fastest-growing identity class in the enterprise—before it’s too late.