Insights / Research Report / Managing Non-human Identities for an Effective Cybersecurity Program
December 6, 2024

Managing Non-human Identities for an Effective Cybersecurity Program

Todd Thiemann
Senior Analyst, IAM & Data Security

Emily Marsh
Associate Research Director

Market Topics

Cybersecurity

Enterprise IT cybersecurity and operations teams are recognizing the risk associated with the large and growing volume of non-human identities (NHIs). Modern application architectures with complex relationships and ephemeral resources have resulted in a proliferation of non-human access to communicate and exchange data. NHI is an emerging space with unique characteristics and lifecycle requirements when compared with the more established human identity and access management (IAM) domain. Inadequate security for non-human identities poses significant security risks given the significant access and privileges provided to non-human identity infrastructure. Specifically, poor security for NHIs can lead to data breaches, operational disruptions, and compliance violations. As cloud adoption and automation continue to grow, effective non-human identity management has become essential for maintaining security, facilitating business operations, and supporting digital transformation initiatives.

To gain further insight into these trends and issues, TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group surveyed 367 IT, cybersecurity, and DevOps, platform, and cybersecurity engineering professionals at organizations in North America (US and Canada) involved with or responsible for the technologies and processes that secure non-human identities and machine workloads.

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