Agentic AI represents a significant advancement in artificial intelligence, offering autonomous decision-making capabilities that can transform various industries. However, its integration introduces specific security challenges, particularly concerning Non-Human Identities (NHI). This article explores the concept of Agentic AI, its applications, adoption trends, and associated NHI security risks. What is Agentic AI? Agentic AI refers to […]
The popularity of Generative AI apps such as ChatGPT, Gemini, GPT4, Adobe, and many more is undeniably changing how organizations operate. While these AI-powered apps offer exceptional capabilities to automate tasks and boost productivity, they also pose significant threats and expand an organization’s attack surface through various threat vectors – a major one of them […]
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) is a framework that focuses on protecting your organization from being compromised by threat actors exploiting your organization’s identities. Practically, ITDR solutions include system policies, best practices, and effective tools to monitor, detect, and respond to identity-based threats in real-time across an organization’s environments. Some other known identity threat […]
WHAT are Machine Credentials? Machine Credentials are a collective noun for Non-human Identities that operate as digital access keys used by systems. They are used to authenticate and communicate securely with other applications or services in the organization’s environment. By verifying a machine’s unique identity, machine credentials allow safe, agreed-upon interaction. Machine credentials come in […]
Imagine giving your AI assistant a universal remote control to operate all your digital devices and services while eliminating the need for custom integrations for each new app. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open-source standardization that creates a single, unified “language” for connecting AI models with various data sources, tools, and external applications. […]
Non-human identities (NHI) are digital, automated and programmable access credentials that play a crucial role in securing systems, managing access, and ensuring the integrity of digital environments. NHIs come in the form of API keys, OAuth tokens, service accounts, and secrets, and are created daily by employees as they delegate access to external entities to […]
What are OAuth Tokens? OAuth (Open Authorization) Tokens are Non-Human Identities that work as a secure authentication mechanism. They delegate access to third parties or external apps without exposing your environment’s sensitive credentials. Organizations that rely on third-party applications and service integrations in their environments commonly use OAuth tokens. There are different kinds of OAuth […]
Overview Environment Isolation refers to separating cloud environments (development, staging, production) and ensuring that non-human identities (NHIs)—such as service accounts, roles, or access tokens—are not shared across them. Failing to isolate environments increases the risk that a compromise in a less secure system (like testing) can propagate to production. What Is Environment Isolation? Environment isolation […]
Overview Human Use of NHI occurs when humans—developers, admins, or attackers—use non-human identities (NHIs) like service accounts or API tokens for manual tasks. This misuse compromises accountability, blurs audit trails, and bypasses security controls designed for individual identities. What Is Human Use of NHI? NHIs are built for automated system access, not human interaction. Yet, […]
Overview Improper Offboarding refers to the failure to deactivate or remove non‑human identities (NHIs)—like service accounts, machine credentials, and access keys—when they are no longer needed. This lapse leads to dormant, orphaned, or vulnerable identities that significantly increase cybersecurity risk. What Is Improper Offboarding? In the context of the OWASP NHI Top 10 (2025), Improper […]
Overview Insecure Authentication refers to the use of deprecated, misconfigured, or weak authentication methods to grant access to non-human identities (NHIs) such as service accounts, API keys, or third-party integrations. These outdated flows expose credentials to interception, privilege escalation, and misuse—making them a common and severe security gap in SaaS environments. What Is Insecure Authentication? […]
Overview Insecure Cloud Deployment Configurations occur when CI/CD pipelines, service identities, or trust relationships in cloud platforms are misconfigured, leading to unintended access or exposure of non-human identities (NHIs). These weaknesses open the door to supply chain attacks, privilege abuse, and lateral movement across environments. What Are Insecure Cloud Deployment Configurations? CI/CD platforms enable organizations […]
Overview Long-Lived Secrets refer to non-human identity credentials—such as API keys, access tokens, or encryption keys—that persist far longer than necessary. These static, unrotated secrets are high-value targets for attackers because they offer extended or indefinite access once compromised. What Are Long-Lived Secrets? In modern SaaS and cloud environments, NHIs rely on secrets to automate […]
Overview NHI Reuse refers to the repeated use of a single non-human identity—such as a service account, API key, or cloud credential—across multiple applications, services, or environments. While convenient, this practice creates significant security risk by broadening the potential blast radius if that identity is ever compromised. What Is NHI Reuse? Non-human identities (NHIs) are […]
Overview Overprivileged NHIs are non-human identities—like service accounts, tokens, or automation users—that are granted excessive permissions beyond what they actually need. This violates the principle of least privilege and creates critical attack vectors when these identities are compromised. What Is an Overprivileged NHI? NHIs play a foundational role in SaaS and cloud automation, enabling systems […]
Overview Secret Leakage refers to the unintentional exposure of sensitive credentials—such as API keys, tokens, and database passwords—that authenticate non-human identities (NHIs). These secrets often end up in unsecured environments, where they can be exploited for unauthorized access, data theft, or lateral movement. What Is Secret Leakage? Within the OWASP NHI Top 10 framework, Secret […]
Overview Vulnerable Third-Party NHIs are non-human identities—like API tokens, service credentials, or OAuth apps—issued to external vendors, services, or development tools that interact with internal systems. When these third-party connections lack proper oversight or become compromised, they present a potent supply chain risk, enabling attackers to exploit trusted integrations to access sensitive systems. What Is […]
What are service accounts? Service Accounts are Non-Human Identity accounts used by machines or apps to communicate with one another within a system, unlike user or human accounts. Service Accounts, using machine credentials, provide privileged identities and permissions for applications, scripts, services, or virtual machines to perform tasks or access resources. This allows different systems […]
Workload Identity Management is the discipline of securing and governing non-human identities (NHIs) — including API keys, service accounts, OAuth apps, CI/CD tokens, webhooks, and increasingly, AI agents — that interact with digital systems across cloud, SaaS, on-prem, and hybrid environments. According to Gartner, Workload Identity Management is an emerging but critical security capability, formally […]
