Why are non-human identities a security concern?

They are numerous, often over-privileged, long-lived, and poorly governed, which makes them an attractive and frequently overlooked attack path.

How do you manage non-human identities?

By inventorying them, applying least privilege, rotating and shortening their credentials, and governing their lifecycle the way human identities are governed.

What Is a Non-Human Identity (NHI)?

By SWI Community Team · Updated 2026-06-12 · 7 min

A non-human identity (NHI) is any identity that is not a person: service accounts, API keys, OAuth tokens, certificates, workloads, bots, and increasingly AI agents. In most organizations, NHIs now outnumber human identities many times over, and they are widely under-governed.

Why NHIs are a growing risk

NHIs often have broad, standing privileges, no MFA, and credentials that rarely rotate. Leaked keys and over-permissioned service accounts are a leading cause of cloud breaches. See our secrets sprawl data for the scale of leaked credentials.

The new wave: AI agents

AI agents act on behalf of users, call APIs, and chain tools together. They need identities that are scoped, delegated, auditable, and revocable, which traditional service accounts do not provide. This is the focus of the emerging agentic and AI identity category and protocols like MCP authorization.

How to manage them

Discover every NHI, remove standing privileges, rotate and vault secrets, and govern lifecycle like you would human accounts. Machine and workload identity and PKI tools handle the cryptographic side.

Where to start

For the full picture, read the non-human identity security guide, the deep dive on securing AI agent identities, and the machine identity management guide. When you are choosing tools, see best machine identity for enterprises.

Frequently asked questions

What is a non-human identity?: A non-human identity is any identity that is not a person, including service accounts, API keys, tokens, bots, workloads, and increasingly AI agents.
Why are non-human identities a security concern?: They are numerous, often over-privileged, long-lived, and poorly governed, which makes them an attractive and frequently overlooked attack path.
How do you manage non-human identities?: By inventorying them, applying least privilege, rotating and shortening their credentials, and governing their lifecycle the way human identities are governed.