CSPM vs. NHIM Explained: Securing the Hidden Layer of Machine Identities

Read full article here: https://www.oasis.security/blog/non-human-identity-management-vs-cspm/?utm_source=nhimg

In today’s cloud-first world, protecting sensitive data and infrastructure requires more than patching servers and enforcing compliance. As organizations scale across multiple cloud environments, two critical disciplines emerge as pillars of modern security: Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM).

While both aim to reduce risk, they operate in different layers of your security stack — and together, they form a powerful defense strategy.

CSPM and NHIM: Complementary, Not Competing

CSPM focuses on cloud infrastructure security, ensuring configurations, policies, and resources comply with best practices and regulations.
NHIM, on the other hand, tackles the security of non-human identities (NHIs) — the service accounts, API keys, and machine credentials that silently power automation, integrations, and workloads.

If cloud environments are the islands where your applications live, NHIs are the bridges connecting them. Securing those bridges is as critical as securing the islands themselves.

What is CSPM?

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools continuously assess and strengthen your cloud environment’s security.
They detect misconfigurations, enforce policies, and help organizations maintain compliance.

Core Capabilities of CSPM

• Continuous Monitoring: Detect drifts or misconfigurations across AWS, Azure, GCP, and SaaS services.
• Risk & Compliance Assessment: Continuously evaluate your environment against standards like CIS, NIST, and ISO.
• Automated Remediation: Identify and fix security gaps automatically or through guided workflows.
• Policy Enforcement: Ensure consistent guardrails and configurations across all cloud accounts.

Example:
A misconfigured cloud storage bucket exposes sensitive data publicly. CSPM detects the issue, alerts the team, and enforces corrective configuration, preventing a potential data leak.

What is Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM)?

Non-Human Identity Management focuses on securing the invisible workforce of your cloud — machine accounts, service principals, and API tokens.
These NHIs often outnumber humans by 45:1 and have access to sensitive data, infrastructure, and production systems — yet lack MFA, password resets, or standard monitoring.

Core Capabilities of NHIM

• Continuous Discovery & Unified Inventory: Automatically discover and maintain a live inventory of all NHIs across clouds, SaaS, and on-prem systems.
• Contextual Visibility & Ownership Mapping: Understand who owns each NHI, what it accesses, and what dependencies exist.
• Active Posture Management: Continuously evaluate the security posture of each identity — flagging stale accounts, unused tokens, or privilege escalation risks.
• Lifecycle Automation: Automate provisioning, credential rotation, and decommissioning across secret managers like HashiCorp Vault, Azure Key Vault, and CyberArk.
• Developer-Ready Integration: Embed identity security into CI/CD pipelines and developer workflows using robust APIs.

Example:
An organization finds hundreds of active API keys created by past developers. NHIM tools automatically identify stale credentials, assess risk, and rotate or revoke them — eliminating hidden backdoors.

CSPM vs. NHIM: A Side-by-Side Comparison

Why Both CSPM and NHIM Are Critical

CSPM ensures your cloud is configured securely, but NHIM ensures your identities accessing that cloud are trustworthy.
Without CSPM, your environment drifts into misconfiguration.
Without NHIM, your machine identities become the attacker’s easiest entry point.

Together, they offer comprehensive cloud defense — visibility, control, and automation across both infrastructure and identity layers.

Bringing It Together with Oasis Security

Oasis Security empowers organizations to discover, assess, and secure every non-human identity across the enterprise.
By integrating with platforms like Snowflake, AWS, and Azure, Oasis delivers full visibility and automated lifecycle management for NHIs — bridging the critical gap CSPM tools don’t cover.

With CSPM and NHIM working hand-in-hand, organizations can finally achieve end-to-end visibility, compliance, and security in the cloud.