Human vs. Non-Human Identities: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters

Human vs Non-Human Identities are reshaping how organizations approach access control in a cloud-first world. While human identities such as employees or contractors remain central to authentication and access, the rapid growth of automation, APIs, and interconnected applications has given rise to non-human identities (NHIs). In many organizations, these two types of identities are still managed separately, a practice that once worked in traditional data centers. But as cloud and SaaS adoption accelerates, this fragmented approach no longer fits the interconnected nature of modern systems. Treating human and machine identities in isolation can create visibility gaps and weaken overall security posture. These digital entities operate without direct human interaction but hold powerful credentials that can access sensitive systems, making their governance equally critical.

The real challenge lies in visibility and ownership. Human users create and manage NHIs, but when they change roles or leave, these machine identities often persist unchecked, leading to excessive permissions and security blind spots. Managing human and non-human identities with separate policies is no longer viable, as both must be governed by a unified framework to prevent misuse of access and compliance failures.

According to a survey by Enterprise Strategy Group via TechTarget, organizations estimate that non-human identities outnumber human identities by about 20 to 1, and 72% of organizations either know or suspect NHIs have been compromised in the past 12 months. Understanding how to secure, govern, and align both identity types under a unified framework is essential to maintaining security and trust in hybrid environments. Let’s explore this further in the blog.

Key Takeaways:

• Learn what sets human and non-human identities apart in modern cloud environments.

• Understand how each type of identity is authenticated, managed, and secured.

• Uncover the hidden risks of unmanaged non-human identities and key sprawl.

• Explore best practices to secure and govern non-human identities effectively.

• See how AI and automation are shaping the future of unified identity management.

What Are Human Identities?

Human identities in cloud security are the unique digital profiles assigned to individual users that enable them to access and operate within cloud environments. These profiles usually contain identifiers such as usernames along with authentication credentials like passwords or security tokens.

They play a vital role in defining access permissions, tracking user actions, and maintaining transparency in cloud operations. Through continuous monitoring of human identities, organizations can audit user behavior, identify unusual activities, and strengthen protection against unauthorized access. These identities define how a person interacts with corporate systems and cloud applications, ensuring that only authorized users gain access to the right resources. They are managed through Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems that help maintain security, compliance, and operational efficiency across the organization.

Managed Through IAM Systems

Human identities are created, verified, and maintained through IAM platforms that govern authentication, authorization, and access policies. These systems help organizations strike the right balance between security and usability.

1. Active Directory (AD): Active Directory serves as a centralized directory service that stores user profiles, roles, and access permissions. It allows administrators to manage who can access specific systems and resources while maintaining consistent security policies across departments and applications.

2. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Multi-factor authentication strengthens account security by requiring users to verify their identity using two or more methods, such as a password, mobile token, or biometric factor. Phishing-resistant options like Okta FastPass provide additional protection against credential-based attacks.

3. Single Sign-On (SSO): Single sign-on enables users to access multiple applications using a single set of credentials. This reduces password fatigue, improves the user experience, and helps maintain centralized control over authentication processes.

4. Behavioral Monitoring: Continuous monitoring of user activity helps detect unusual behavior such as logins from unfamiliar devices or locations. This allows organizations to identify and respond to potential threats before they escalate into breaches.

Lifecycle of a Human Identity

Every human identity follows a defined lifecycle that determines how access is provisioned, modified, and eventually revoked. Managing this lifecycle properly helps prevent unauthorized access and ensures that permissions remain aligned with business needs.

1. Joiner: When a new employee, partner, or customer joins the organization, an identity is created within the IAM system. This profile is linked to their role and assigned the necessary access rights to perform their tasks efficiently and securely.

2. Mover: As the person changes roles, projects, or departments, their permissions are updated to reflect new responsibilities. This ensures that users retain only the access required for their current role, reducing the likelihood of privilege misuse.

3. Leaver: When an individual leaves the organization, their access must be revoked immediately to avoid security gaps. Prompt offboarding helps prevent former employees or third parties from retaining access to sensitive systems or data.

4. Deprovision: Finally, the user’s identity and credentials are completely removed from all systems. Automated deprovisioning workflows help identify and eliminate inactive or dormant accounts, reducing the overall attack surface and ensuring compliance with internal and regulatory security policies.

What Are Non-Human Identities (NHIs)?

Non-Human Identities (NHIs) represent the digital credentials assigned to machines, applications, APIs, services, or bots rather than real people. These identities play a critical role in enabling secure and automated operations across complex cloud and hybrid environments. They allow systems to authenticate, communicate, and exchange data without manual intervention, forming the foundation of modern automation.

How NHIs Work in the Digital Ecosystem

Unlike human identities that are created and managed through HR processes, NHIs are typically generated by systems, developers, or automation tools. They are essential for enabling seamless communication between software components, cloud workloads, and infrastructure services.

1. Service Accounts: These special-purpose accounts are used by applications and services to perform automated tasks such as database updates, file transfers, or system backups. They operate without human input but still require strict access control to prevent misuse.

2. API Keys: These unique alphanumeric strings authenticate applications or developers when interacting with APIs. They define which resources an application can access and help track usage. If exposed, they can provide unauthorized access to sensitive systems.

3. Certificates: Digital certificates verify the identity of services and encrypt the data exchanged between them. They help establish trust in machine-to-machine communications by ensuring that only legitimate services can connect.

4. Tokens: Commonly used in OAuth and similar frameworks, tokens are temporary digital credentials that grant limited access to specific resources. Their time-bound nature helps minimize risk if they are compromised.

5. Bots: Automated agents, often integrated into platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams, perform repetitive tasks, process data, or respond to user requests. Many of these bots use AI to enhance automation and improve decision-making.

Why NHIs Require Careful Management

Managing non-human identities is often more challenging than managing human ones. NHIs are created outside traditional HR processes, which means they frequently lack clear ownership, visibility, or accountability. As organizations expand their digital infrastructure, the number of these identities can grow into the thousands, and many may remain unnoticed or unmanaged.

1. Lack of Lifecycle Control: Unlike employee accounts that are deactivated when someone leaves, NHIs can remain active long after their associated workload or service has been decommissioned. This leaves behind unused credentials that attackers can exploit.

2. Static Credentials and Secrets: Many NHIs rely on static credentials such as hardcoded API keys, SSH keys, or tokens that remain active for long periods. Without rotation or expiration policies, these credentials can become a major security risk.

3. Over-Permissioned Accounts: Service accounts and APIs are often granted broader access than necessary. Over-permissioning increases the potential impact if a single NHI is compromised.

4. Visibility Gaps: Traditional security tools focus on human identity monitoring, leaving NHIs outside their scope. This makes it difficult for teams to detect unusual activity or potential misuse of automated credentials.

To address these challenges, organizations are adopting identity-based security models that apply the principle of least privilege and enable just-in-time access for machine identities. By continuously discovering, monitoring, and rotating NHI credentials, enterprises can reduce risk exposure and strengthen their overall identity security posture.

Key Differences Between Human and Non-Human Identities

As organizations expand their digital ecosystems, managing both human and non-human identities has become increasingly complex. While human identities are tied to real people who log in and perform defined roles, non-human identities (NHIs) represent automated entities like applications, bots, and cloud workloads that connect and operate without human intervention. Understanding their distinctions is critical for implementing the right security controls and maintaining visibility across systems.

The following table highlights the major differences between human and non-human identities across their core attributes, management processes, and associated security risks.

Human vs. Non-Human Identities: A Closer Comparison

Security Risks of Non-Human Identities

Non-Human Identities (NHIs), such as service accounts, workloads, and machine credentials, introduce complex and often invisible security risks. They operate quietly in the background, automating critical processes across cloud, SaaS, and hybrid environments. But unlike humans, these identities typically have static, long-lived credentials and elevated privileges, which is a dangerous combination when left unchecked.

1. Static and Hardcoded Credentials

Many NHIs rely on hardcoded or long-lived credentials embedded in code, scripts, or configuration files. If these are exposed through a compromised Git repository or insecure storage, attackers can easily harvest them for persistent access. Without regular rotation or visibility, such credentials become ticking time bombs in production systems.

2. Over-Permissioned and Unmonitored Access

NHIs are frequently over-permissioned, often granted broad, unrestricted access without the guardrails of multi-factor authentication or behavioral monitoring. This overreach, combined with the absence of ownership or lifecycle governance, creates a vast, unmonitored attack surface. Once compromised, an NHI can grant attackers direct entry into critical systems, often undetected by traditional security tools.

3. Shadow IT and Identity Sprawl

Developers and automation tools continuously spin up new NHIs to support integrations or workloads, often outside formal governance processes. This untracked creation of machine identities, known as identity sprawl, results in unmanaged credentials scattered across environments. Each unmanaged API token, script, or service account expands the organization’s exposure and increases the blast radius of any breach.

4. Real-World Breach Example

The 2024 Snowflake breach is a stark reminder of this risk. Attackers exploited stolen machine credentials that lacked MFA, infiltrating customer environments and exfiltrating sensitive data undetected for weeks. The incident affected over 165 organizations, highlighting how a single compromised NHI can escalate into a large-scale breach.

In short, NHIs multiply faster than human accounts, operate with more privileges, and are far harder to monitor, making them one of the most overlooked yet potent risks in modern identity security.

How to Secure and Govern Non-Human Identities

To strengthen security and minimize risk, organizations must manage Non-Human Identities (NHIs) with the same discipline and oversight applied to human users. This means combining automation, continuous monitoring, and centralized governance to keep every machine identity secure and accountable.

1. Automate Discovery and Classification of NHIs

Start by identifying and cataloging every non-human identity across cloud, SaaS, and on-premises systems. Use automated discovery tools to detect API tokens, service accounts, and workloads. Tagging and classifying these identities by type and function provides visibility, helps prevent identity sprawl, and establishes a foundation for consistent governance.

2. Enforce Least Privilege and Short-Lived Credentials

Grant NHIs only the minimum permissions necessary for their roles, reducing the attack surface. Replace long-lived credentials with short-lived tokens or workload identity federation. When static credentials are required, automate rotation and expiration to minimize exposure and maintain compliance.

3. Implement Continuous Monitoring with Anomaly Detection

Monitor all NHI activities in real time to detect unauthorized access or unusual patterns. Integrating AI-driven anomaly detection and detailed audit logging ensures rapid response to potential threats and improves visibility across machine-to-machine interactions.

4. Centralize Secrets and Certificate Management

Use secure secrets management solutions such as CyberArk, HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, or Azure Key Vault to store, encrypt, and rotate credentials. Centralized management ensures consistency, visibility, and faster detection of misuse across all machine identities.

6 Best Practices for Managing Human and Non-Human Identities

To minimize the risks associated with unmanaged identities, organizations need a well-defined strategy that clearly distinguishes and secures both human and non-human identities.

1. Classify and Segment Identities Clearly

Establish defined criteria within your identity management system to separate human and non-human identities. Assign NHIs specific roles and permissions based on their purpose, and use automated tagging and labeling to maintain visibility. Regular audits should be conducted to verify that classifications remain accurate and up to date.

2. Enforce Granular Access and the Principle of Least Privilege

Limit the access granted to NHIs strictly to what is required for their functions. For example, a token used to read data should not have permissions to modify or delete it. Use dynamic access controls that adapt to context, such as workload, time, location, or security posture, to further minimize risk.

3. Maintain Continuous Monitoring and Audit Trails

Implement continuous monitoring to track activities of both human and non-human identities and quickly detect suspicious or unauthorized access. Maintain detailed audit logs of actions such as token usage, API calls, and service interactions, and review them regularly to identify potential threats or misuse.

4. Utilize Automation and AI in Identity Management

Automate the provisioning, updating, and de-provisioning of NHIs to prevent orphaned or unused credentials from remaining active. Incorporate AI-based tools to identify abnormal identity behavior in real time, improving detection and response to potential compromises.

5. Strengthen Authentication and Token Security

Adopt identity- and posture-aware policy enforcement to continuously validate machine identities based on behavior, context, and risk level. Replace long-lived credentials with short-lived tokens whenever possible, and enforce strict expiration and automated revocation policies to minimize exposure.

6. Collaborate with SaaS and Third-Party Ecosystems

Work closely with SaaS providers and third-party vendors to ensure their systems distinguish between human and non-human identities and apply appropriate controls. Conduct regular security assessments of external partners to verify that their identity management practices align with your organization’s policies and risk framework.

Integrating Human and Non-Human Identity Management

Managing human identities through Identity and Access Management (IAM) and non-human identities (NHIs) through workload or machine identity frameworks should no longer happen in isolation. Bringing both under a unified governance model gives organizations complete visibility into who or what has access to resources and when. This integration strengthens Zero Trust security, enhances compliance, and eliminates blind spots in identity management.

1. Align IAM (humans) and IGA (governance) for complete oversight

Traditional IAM systems handle human users, defining their roles, permissions, and authentication mechanisms. Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) frameworks oversee provisioning, de-provisioning, and compliance for human identities. However, NHIs such as API tokens, service accounts, and workloads often fall outside these governance cycles, leading to unmanaged access. By extending IGA processes to cover both human and non-human identities, organizations ensure that every identity is included in access reviews, audits, and lifecycle management, establishing consistency, accountability, and ownership.

2. Map machine identities into the same lifecycle model

Human identities follow clear lifecycle stages that include onboarding, role changes, and offboarding. NHIs, on the other hand, are frequently created on demand by developers or automation tools and left active long after their purpose is fulfilled. To achieve unified control, machine identities should be included in the same lifecycle as human identities: discovery, classification, assignment, access, monitoring, and decommissioning. This approach prevents orphaned accounts and reduces the risk of excessive or lingering permissions.

3. Apply consistent policies and monitoring across both

When human and non-human identities are managed under separate systems, security inconsistencies can arise. Humans may be subject to MFA, role-based access reviews, and detailed monitoring, while NHIs often operate with static credentials and minimal oversight. A unified framework applies the same security principles to both: least privilege, credential rotation, contextual access, and real-time monitoring. Centralized dashboards and continuous anomaly detection offer a single pane of visibility into all identity activities, whether initiated by a person or a machine.

The Future of Identity Management: AI and Automation

The future of identity management lies in the seamless blend of artificial intelligence and automation. As organizations handle an increasing number of human and non-human identities, traditional manual processes are no longer enough. AI and automation are becoming the driving forces behind secure, efficient, and scalable identity governance.

1. AI-driven anomaly detection for unified oversight

AI analyzes patterns across both human and machine identities to identify unusual behaviors, access attempts, or usage trends. This enables security teams to detect potential threats early and respond before they escalate into breaches.

2. Automated policy enforcement to maintain least privilege

Automated identity workflows ensure that every user and system account is granted only the access needed for specific tasks. By continuously adjusting permissions and rotating credentials, automation helps maintain compliance and reduce attack surfaces.

3. Predictive analytics for proactive identity risk management

Machine learning models forecast potential access risks and highlight accounts that may become over privileged or inactive. This predictive capability allows organizations to act before vulnerabilities are exploited.

4. Strengthening Zero Trust through continuous verification

AI and automation reinforce Zero Trust principles by verifying every access request in real time. Continuous authentication ensures that identities, whether human or machine, are always validated within context, creating a dynamic and secure environment.

Together, these advancements are reshaping identity management into an intelligent, self-regulating system that protects data, ensures compliance, and supports the evolving needs of digital enterprises.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What are non-human identities in cybersecurity?

Non-human identities (NHIs) are digital credentials that allow applications, bots, and machines to access systems or data without human involvement. They use elements like API keys, tokens, and certificates to authenticate. Essentially, they enable automated processes to function securely within digital environments.

2. How do human identities differ from non-human identities?

Human identities are tied to real people and managed through IAM systems with methods like passwords, MFA, or SSO. Non-human identities, on the other hand, belong to automated entities such as services, devices, or scripts. They rely on credentials like tokens or keys and often operate continuously without manual oversight.

3. Why are non-human identities a growing security risk?

Non-human identities often exist in far greater numbers than human users and can remain active long after they’re needed. Because they’re easy to create and hard to monitor, they can expand an organization’s attack surface. Unmanaged keys or tokens can quickly turn into hidden entry points for cyber threats.

4. How can organizations manage NHIs effectively?

Organizations should adopt centralized secrets management systems to store and rotate credentials securely. Automating discovery and lifecycle management helps identify unused or risky NHIs. Integrating NHI governance within IAM and IGA ensures consistency, compliance, and reduced exposure to misuse.

5. What’s the relationship between IAM, IGA, and non-human identity management?

IAM focuses on controlling access to systems, while IGA adds governance and compliance oversight. Non-human identity management extends both by bringing visibility and control to machine-based identities. Together, they create a unified framework that protects every user and system across the organization.