For a long time, identity practitioners have mastered the delicate balancing act of maintaining operational efficiency while enabling businesses to grow securely. Identity and Access Management (IAM) experts have built extensive identity ecosystems, streamlining the largest and most prominent organizations in the world to ensure the right person gets the right access, for the right reason, and for the right amount of time. They have adapted to a perimeterless world and met new business expectations to provide any identity, on any device, with access to sensitive information exactly when it's needed.
Now, in 2024, we have reached a point where identities no longer need to be human. We call this the identity paradox: the inflection point in Identity Security where the distinction between human and non-human identities has shifted. After all, what’s the difference in risk between an API Key or Service Principal with access to PII and a human with the same access if an attacker can log in as either one?
The difference lies in the layers of protection. For non-human identities (NHIs), traditional identity controls no longer apply. There is no MFA, no SSO, and little to no RBAC or governance. Without the proper context, ownership, and governance, rotating the secret, deleting, or modifying these NHIs might not only break an IT process but also impact business operations.
Why current IAM solutions are not enough?
There is not a holistic solution for NHI Management:
Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solutions are human-centric - focusing on the human lifecycle (joiner, mover, leaver). While some of the current IGA on the market can discover service accounts in Active Directory (AD), they are missing the ability to have the full context - such as which consumers are using these accounts and who is the owner of those identities - and to offer security insights about those accounts like risk benchmarks to identify toxic combinations and privilege escalation interactions. Additionally, these solutions cannot manage other NHIs, such as certificates, API keys, and tokens, nor can they perform discovery in SaaS or cloud environments. Lastly, IGA solutions are unable to manage many phases of the NHI lifecycle out of the box, such as key rotation and secrets vaulting.
PAM solutions are able to remove hard-coded credentials from applications or enforce automatic rotation cadences for non-human identities located within the vault. However, have very limited discovery and contextual capabilities, which makes them unsuitable for managing the unknowns, which constitute the vast majority of NHIs, as they are created continuously and by anyone. These solutions lack universal governance, context (usage, where and why the secrets are being used, who the consumer is, and what resources are granted with that secret), and risk posture. PAM solutions handle predefined privileged identities, but effective risk management requires a risk scoring function that considers various aspects, such as third-party exposure and the resources being accessed.
CNAPP solutions are able to identify certain posture issues, such as misconfiguration and vulnerabilities in the cloud. However, these solutions do not cover SaaS and on-prem environments. While they may provide one-time remediation steps, they do not offer governance and automation capabilities, such as automatic secret rotation capabilities. Additionally, they do not perform in-depth consumer resolution and ownership assignment, which are critical for effectively remediating NHI risks.
This brings us to the core challenge:
How long would it take for your organization to manually discover each individual non-human identity and assign ownership to them?
Once discovered, how much time would it take to right-size these identities to the least privilege?
And finally, after right-sizing, how long would it take to attach these non-human identities to your current Human Identity Lifecycle Program so they can be included in the recertification and attestation SLAs and workflows for security and audit (such as SOX, PCI, HIPAA, etc.)?
If your first response is “minutes, it is easy,” you're probably an Oasis customer! But if it is “months” or “I do not even know where to start,” take a look at best practices to manage NHIs.
Best Practices for Managing Non-Human Identities
Comprehensive Discovery and Inventory: Start by automating the discovery and inventory of all non-human identities within your organization. This includes service accounts, API keys, tokens, and certificates (this list is not comprehensive).
Assign Clear Ownership and Accountability: Ensure each NHI has an assigned owner responsible for its lifecycle management, from creation to decommissioning. This establishes clear accountability and governance over your non-human identities.
Apply the Principle of Least Privilege: Regularly review and right-size permissions for NHIs, granting only the minimum necessary access to perform their functions. This reduces the risk of privilege escalation and unauthorized access.
Implement Safe Secret Rotation: Automate the rotation and management of secrets associated with non-human identities. This reduces the risk posed by stale or hard-coded secrets.
Continuous Monitoring and Auditing: Establish continuous monitoring mechanisms to detect and respond to suspicious activities involving NHIs. Regular audits and real-time alerts help maintain a secure environment.
Integrate NHIs into Existing Governance Frameworks: Incorporate NHIs into your existing IGA processes. Ensure they are included in onboarding and offboarding, recertification and attestation workflows to comply with regulatory requirements and reduce the vector of attack.
Oasis is designed from the ground up to address the unique challenges of managing and securing non-human identities. Here’s how Oasis can help your organization:
Complete Visibility: Gain a holistic view of all NHIs, understanding their usage, dependencies, and relationships within your IT stack.
Automated Lifecycle Management: From discovery to decommissioning, automate the entire lifecycle of NHIs to ensure robust security and operational efficiency.
Proactive Security Posture Management: Continuously assess and improve the security posture of your NHIs, taking proactive measures to mitigate risks.
Seamless Integration: Integrate with the existing security stack, providing a unified approach to identity management.
Fast Time to Value: Quickly identify and resolve issues, delivering tangible security improvements within days of implementation.
Don’t Wait – Act Now! Contact us and take the first step towards comprehensive non-human identity security.
