Unmasking the Shadows: Securing Non-Human Identities in Cybersecurity

By Fred Templeton, CISA, CASP, SEC+   Published: 06/11/25   Updated: 10/25/26   3 min read
Cyber News

Non-human identities are now central to cybersecurity. Service accounts, API keys, bots and devices authenticate to each other constantly without people involved. That makes automation possible. It also creates a large, often poorly governed attack surface when secrets and permissions are badly managed.

Visibility is only the start. The harder part is controlling how these identities are issued and limited over time, so they don’t become quiet routes to privilege abuse or lateral movement inside a network. This guide explains why non-human identities matter and how to secure them.

What non-human identities do

Non-human identities differ from user accounts because they let devices and software talk to each other. They move data between platforms. Because they are embedded deep in systems and infrastructure, they are hard to track, and many organizations can’t say how many they have. When these identities are left unprotected, attackers can use them to get in.

Why attackers target them

Non-human identities are everywhere and rarely watched, which makes them prime targets. Default settings are a common opening. So are loose access controls and a poor grasp of what each identity can reach. A compromised API, for example, can give an attacker a path to customer records or production systems. Generic controls aren’t enough here.

How vendors are responding

Tech and security companies are building tools for the problem, with stronger authentication and AI-driven anomaly detection aimed at machine identities. Many organizations use machine learning to watch for unusual behavior, which can catch threats before data is compromised. AI monitoring of non-human identities is likely to become standard.

Trends to watch

New encryption methods and zero-trust security models are both gaining ground. The aim is to block unauthorized access and shrink the attack surface these identities create. Organizations are starting to treat machine identity security as a core part of their strategy instead of an afterthought. Expect it in more security policies.

Where to start

The number of IoT devices and APIs keeps growing, and so does the risk from the identities they use. Start with an inventory of every service account, API key and certificate. Then remove the ones nobody owns. Rotate secrets on a schedule. Give each identity only the access it needs, and alert on unusual use, since those steps close most of the gaps attackers rely on when they go after service accounts.

Related buying guide: Readers comparing service-account, machine-identity, and privileged-access controls can continue to our guide to the best IAM tools in 2026.

Related buying guide: Since non-human identity security often overlaps with secrets, elevation, and privileged workflow control, readers can continue to our guide to the best PAM tools in 2026.

Related buying guide: Teams trying to detect identity abuse around machine identities, tokens, and suspicious access patterns should compare the best ITDR tools in 2026.

Related comparison hub: Teams exploring machine-identity risk can use our guide to the best identity security tools in 2026 to compare the wider set of controls.

Related comparison: If non-human identity risk is forcing broader access decisions, compare IAM vs PAM vs ZTNA vs ITDR.

Stay Current

Newer CyberExperts coverage on this topic

This article still works as background. If you want the current picture, start with the freshest related coverage below and today's brief.

Latest Daily Brief

Friday’s brief: Cisco VPN firewalls under attack, then GitLab, Synology NAS ransomware and Cisco SD-WAN spyware

The fastest way to catch up on what changed after this article was published.

Read Today's Brief

Fred Templeton, CISA, CASP, SEC+

Fred Templeton is a practicing Information Systems Auditor in the Washington DC area. Fred works as a government contractor and uses his skills in cyber security to make our country's information systems safer from cyber threats. Fred holds a master's degree in cybersecurity and is currently working on his PHD in Information Systems.