How Non-Human Identity Ownership Impacts Your Security Program?

Read full article here: https://www.oasis.security/blog/5-ways-non-human-identity-ownership-impacts-your-security-program/?source=nhimg

As organizations scale their digital infrastructure, non-human identities (NHIs), including API keys, service accounts, automation scripts, and IoT devices, are multiplying at an unprecedented rate. While these machine identities power automation and integration, they also represent a significant security blind spot when ownership is undefined. Applying the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0.

this article outlines five critical ways NHI ownership directly impacts your organization’s security posture, compliance readiness, and operational efficiency.

1. Unmanaged Insider Threats

Without assigned ownership, NHIs can become orphaned accounts, prime targets for malicious insiders. Lack of accountability enables privilege creep, where excessive permissions accumulate over time. This creates high-value entry points for data exfiltration or policy circumvention, directly undermining the Identify function in the NIST CSF.

2. Ineffective Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Poor NHI ownership weakens Identity and Access Management (IAM) by obscuring who or what, has access to critical systems. This hampers privilege revocation during role changes, leaving dormant accounts vulnerable to exploitation. The Protect principle of NIST CSF requires full visibility and control over all identities to enforce least privilege.

3. Increased Alert Fatigue

Undefined ownership leads to noisy, low-context alerts, overwhelming security teams. Without knowing which account is responsible, analysts waste cycles chasing false positives, increasing the risk of missing real threats. This impacts the Detect function, where timely and accurate identification of suspicious activity is essential.

4. Increased Administrative Overhead

Incident response efforts slow down when teams must first determine who “owns” an NHI before remediation. This delay conflicts with the Respond principle of NIST CSF, as manual investigation across silos increases the risk of business disruption during a security event.

5. Challenges in Conducting Regular Reviews/Attestation

Access governance falters without clear ownership. Regular reviews and attestations become inconsistent, creating oversight gaps that attackers can exploit. This undermines the Govern principle, where well-defined accountability ensures identities remain compliant with policy and regulation.

Conclusion

Gaps in NHI ownership create systemic vulnerabilities, fueling insider threats, IAM weaknesses, and operational inefficiencies. By assigning clear ownership for every machine identity, organizations can strengthen governance, automate risk detection, and streamline compliance. The NIST CSF 2.0 provides a proven blueprint for embedding ownership into the NHI lifecycle, ensuring every identity is accounted for, monitored and aligned to least privilege.