In today’s enterprise environments, complexity is the norm. Businesses rely on sprawling ecosystems of cloud services, third-party APIs, microservices, and containerised applications, each requiring seamless, secure communication. To enable this, a new class of credentials has emerged: non-human identities (NHIs).

These are not usernames and passwords tied to people. Instead, NHIs consist of API keys, OAuth tokens, service accounts, and other machine identities that allow software components to authenticate and interact autonomously. Their rise has unlocked enormous gains in automation and scalability, but at a cost.

Security leaders are now confronting a new reality: non-human identities are multiplying fast, and their governance is falling dangerously behind. According to recent research, 46% of organisations have experienced an NHI-related security incident, while 26% suspect they may have but lack the visibility to confirm.

As NHIs become increasingly foundational to digital operations, failing to properly manage them opens the door to abuse, privilege escalation, and serious data breaches.

How non-human identities became ubiquitous

The dramatic growth of non-human identities is no accident. It tracks closely with broader trends in cloud adoption, API-based integrations, DevOps, and enterprise automation. These identities allow applications, services, containers, and scripts to authenticate with one another, making it possible to execute background jobs, transfer data, or spin up infrastructure automatically.

Organisations often adopt NHIs organically, without an overarching strategy. Developers create service accounts or embed secrets into CI/CD pipelines to get projects moving faster. Over time, these identities accumulate, rarely reviewed or retired, and often overlooked during audits.

For mature cybersecurity teams, NHIs represent the next natural frontier in identity and access management. While strides have been made in securing human users through MFA, role-based access control, and federated identity, machine identities remain inconsistently governed. Some penetration testing companies in Singapore now include NHI mismanagement as a critical finding in their assessments, highlighting the urgency of the issue.

What makes NHIs particularly dangerous is that they often carry high-level access, operate continuously, and are authenticated using static credentials like hardcoded tokens or certificates. This makes them prime targets for exploitation, especially when secrets are inadvertently exposed in public code repositories or configuration files.

The security risks behind non-human identities

On the surface, NHIs function much like user accounts. They hold credentials, are assigned permissions, and serve distinct roles. However, the mechanisms that secure human users, like multi-factor authentication or biometric login, typically aren’t applied to NHIs.

This leads to several serious vulnerabilities:

• Secrets leakage: Developers might hard-code secrets into source code, accidentally push them to public repositories, or reuse tokens across environments. Once exposed, these credentials provide attackers with direct access to critical systems. It’s not uncommon for these leaked tokens to linger for months, as they often lack rotation policies.
• Privilege creep: Many NHIs are over-provisioned with broad and persistent access "just in case." Over time, these identities can amass dangerous levels of access far beyond their original intent, giving attackers a larger blast radius if compromised.
• Lack of lifecycle management: Unlike human users who are onboarded and offboarded in HR systems, NHIs tend to exist in a grey zone. Service accounts may be spun up for a single project and never decommissioned, lingering for years with active credentials and unused permissions.

Because they often run silently in the background, NHIs can be exploited without triggering obvious alarms. That’s why pen test services in Singapore are increasingly incorporating NHI reconnaissance into their threat modelling and red teaming efforts.

The three major hurdles to securing NHIs

Recognising the threat is only the first step. Securing NHIs poses unique challenges that go beyond conventional identity management strategies. Let’s explore the top three hurdles organisations face:

1. Visibility

The most fundamental challenge is identifying what exists. Many organisations are surprised to learn they have thousands of NHIs in play, with most undocumented. Between shadow IT, legacy systems, and automated cloud provisioning, machine identities can proliferate unnoticed.

"You can’t protect what you don’t know exists" is especially true here. Security teams need tooling that can continuously scan for NHIs across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments. This includes detecting hardcoded secrets, enumerating service accounts, and mapping which apps and services are using which credentials.

For organisations operating in fast-moving industries, where agility and automation are key, enlisting Singapore VAPT services can help uncover hidden NHI vulnerabilities across environments.

2. Governance

Once NHIs are discovered, the next hurdle is managing them effectively. That starts with asking some basic but critical questions:

• Who is allowed to create NHIs?
• How are credentials generated and stored?
• Are there expiration policies or usage audits in place?

The unfortunate reality is that many NHIs are created ad hoc by developers under tight deadlines. These identities are rarely linked to policies or ownership and often live far beyond their intended lifespan.

Security teams must implement clear governance models, including naming conventions, tagging, and lifecycle policies for NHIs. Access controls should be applied using the principle of least privilege. Credential rotation should be automated where possible. Implementing guardrails and provisioning flows can help bring structure to what is often a chaotic and ad hoc process.

Forward-thinking companies are integrating these controls into their DevSecOps pipelines, treating NHIs as first-class citizens in the security model, on par with human accounts. Cyber security service providers that specialise in cloud-native security can assist in aligning governance strategies with infrastructure as code practices.

3. Risk prioritisation

It’s unrealistic to lock down every non-human identity immediately. Organisations need to prioritise their efforts based on impact. Which NHIs have the most privileges? Which ones have access to sensitive data or critical systems? Which are exposed to external networks or third-party integrations?

By evaluating the potential blast radius of each NHI, security teams can prioritise remediation based on risk. Focus should be placed on:

• Over-permissioned service accounts
• External-facing NHIs
• Tokens without expiration or rotation
• Secrets found in unsecured repositories

Modern security tooling, including identity security posture management solutions, can automate much of this triage. Still, regular reviews and audits remain essential. Ideally, NHIs should be treated like dynamic assets: continuously monitored, scored for risk, and adjusted as needed.

Conclusion

Non-human identities are now a core part of how modern systems function. However, their rapid adoption has far outpaced traditional identity governance models. Without proper visibility, lifecycle management, and risk reduction strategies, NHIs become high-value targets for attackers. They often run under the radar, wield excessive privileges, and use static credentials that can persist for years. While human and non-human identities differ in structure and security needs, the same principle applies to both: they must be secured before, during, and after authentication. Ignoring NHIs is no longer an option. As attackers shift their focus to machine credentials, defending against this evolving threat is not just prudent but essential.

Cyber threats are evolving, and so should your defences. At Group8, we offer specialised cybersecurity solutions tailored to your organisation’s unique needs. Whether it’s penetration testing, endpoint protection, or incident response, our team is here to help you stay secure in an increasingly digital world. Don’t leave your cybersecurity to chance – reach out to us at hello@group8.co, and let’s build a safer future together.