The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Machine Identities

Read full article here: https://www.sailpoint.com/blog/the-hidden-cost-of-doing-nothing-about-machine-identities?utm_source=nhimg

Machine identities—service accounts, bots, RPA agents, and APIs—now outnumber human identities in most enterprise environments. Yet many remain unmanaged, unmonitored, and unowned. And attackers have noticed.

In 2025 alone, multiple high-profile breaches—including one affecting a global retailer—have been traced back to compromised machine credentials. Still, most organizations delay action—not out of ignorance, but due to the complexity of cleanup.

This inaction comes at a cost.

Orphaned machine accounts accumulate infrastructure expenses, inflate audit efforts, and increase risk exposure. Worse, when these identities are exploited, the financial impact includes response costs, downtime, reputational damage, and potential regulatory penalties.

Even without a breach, delaying cleanup leads to bloated environments, manual investigation costs, and months of operational drag.

That’s why forward-thinking enterprises are turning to automated Machine Identity Security solutions like SailPoint’s. By discovering every machine identity, assigning ownership, enforcing least privilege, and supporting phased deactivation, organizations can reduce both risk and overhead—before attackers strike.