Why Non-Human Identities Should Be A Top Cybersecurity Priority

On a seemingly ordinary day in April, Sisense, a business intelligence company, faced an extraordinary crisis: a major security breach. According to The New Stack, the attack allegedly began when hackers accessed Sisense's self-hosted GitLab repository, which contained hardcoded secret credentials for one of Sisense's AWS S3 buckets.

Other reporting explained these repositories contained large volumes of confidential data comprising machine identities—SSH keys, digital certificates, access tokens and API credentials. These machine identities connect Sisense with other systems and extract data from those platforms. To make matters worse, as Security Boulevard reported, the exposed data was stored unencrypted, making it more accessible to the attackers.

This unfortunate incident wasn’t just any breach but a wake-up call to a new reality: Our digital ecosystems are no longer predominantly human.

In enterprises with complex hybrid environments, non-human identities (NHIs), also called machine identities, outnumber human users. APIs, service accounts, cloud instances and IoT devices form an invisible army of digital workers, each with its own identity and permissions.

These non-human identities are the backbone of modern digital ecosystems.They power everything from internal cloud operations and development pipelines to external integrations with SaaS platforms. Therefore, managing these NHIs is increasingly becoming a top priority for SecOps teams globally.

Even small enterprises manage thousands of NHIs, while global companies likely manage millions. This has created new challenges in cybersecurity. 

Bad actors have noticed that NHIs are the least understood aspect of security infrastructure. As a result, these digital entities have become a favorite target. The severity of this threat is highlighted by the alarming rise in malware specifically targeting non-human identity vulnerabilities.

The Internet of Things (IoT) poses additional challenges for NHI management, especially in high-governance industries like finance and healthcare. These connected devices bring the physical and cyber worlds together paving the way for new threat vectors that must be carefully managed to prevent breaches.

As organizations grapple with these evolving threats, many turn to more robust security models. Zero-trust security, for example, has become popular, particularly in distributed work environments. This approach, which assumes no trust and verifies every access request regardless of its source, relies heavily on effective non-human identity management. 

By properly managing these digital identities, organizations can better control access, monitor activity and maintain security across complex, decentralized networks.

NHIs And Compliance In Heavily Regulated Industries

In sectors like finance and healthcare, the need for robust NHI management is particularly acute due to stringent regulatory requirements. 

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) sets stringent standards for protecting patient data in healthcare. While HIPAA predates the proliferation of NHIs, its access controls and audit trail requirements implicitly demand robust NHI management. Healthcare organizations must ensure that every NHI interacting with protected health information (PHI) is properly authenticated, authorized and audited.

For example, electronic health records often rely on complex networks of APIs and service accounts to facilitate data sharing between different healthcare providers. Each of these NHIs represents a potential access point to sensitive patient data. A compromised API key could lead to a breach affecting thousands of patients, with dire consequences regarding patient trust and regulatory penalties.

The financial sector faces similar challenges under different frameworks. For instance, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) mandates strict controls over access to cardholder data. Financial transactions are increasingly automated, so NHIs often have direct access to this sensitive information. Every touchpoint represents a potential compliance risk if not properly managed.

The Business Case For NHI Management

Implementing comprehensive NHI management can require initial capital outlay, but the long-term financial benefits can be substantial.

Effective NHI management can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches, which cost organizations an average of $4.45 million per incident. And, in heavily regulated industries, the compliance benefits alone can often justify the investment. Moreover, streamlined and automated NHI management processes can drive operational efficiencies by reducing the manual workload on IT and security teams.

Most importantly, robust NHI management enables organizations to innovate more rapidly and confidently as they leverage new technologies and cloud services without compromising security.

Tips For Effective Non-Human Identity Management

So what does effective NHI management look like? Here are a few strategies to ensure your NHIs are in check and not vulnerable:

• Continuous Discovery And Inventory: Automated processes can help to maintain a real-time inventory of all NHIs across your environment. This inventory should include owner, permissions, usage patterns and associated risks.

• Risk-Based Approach: Not all NHIs are created equal. Develop a risk-scoring system that considers factors like access level, data sensitivity and potential blast radius in case of compromise. Prioritize security efforts based on these risk scores.

• Incident Response Action Plan: Create a playbook with step-by-step procedures for containing and mitigating incidents and specifying communication protocols for notifying stakeholders.

• NHI Education Program: Develop targeted training modules for interacting with NHIs. For instance, developer training should focus on secure coding practices and the risks of hardcoded credentials. For operations teams, focus on proper NHI rotation and monitoring.

• Automated Lifecycle Management: Implement systems for automated creation, modification and decommissioning of NHIs. This will reduce human error and ensure consistent application of security policies.

• Non-Human Identity Detection And Response (NHIDR): Behavioral analytics for NHIs can establish baseline behavior patterns for NHIs and detect anomalies that might indicate compromise.

• Change Approval Workflow: Evaluate the impact on NHIs before significant changes. Ensure that updates are reviewed and approved by security and IT teams.

• Exposure Of NHIs: Exposed NHIs should not go undetected for weeks, but should be spotted as soon as possible. NHI monitoring solutions can help by automatically detecting exposed NHIs, alerting them and assisting with incident response.

In the cloud and AI era, the complexity of non-human identity management will only increase. The thriving organizations will recognize NHI security not as a technical challenge but as a strategic priority.

Source - https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2024/09/18/why-non-human-identities-should-be-a-top-cybersecurity-priority/