What Is Non-Human Identity (NHI)?
A non-human identity (NHI) is any digital identity used by software, a machine, or an automated process to authenticate and access systems, rather than by a human user. NHIs include service accounts, API keys, OAuth tokens, application secrets, machine certificates, and identities assigned to bots or AI agents. Like human identities, they carry credentials and permissions, but they typically operate continuously, without interactive login, multi-factor authentication, or a single accountable owner. NHIs exist wherever applications, scripts, pipelines, or cloud services need to communicate with one another. As organizations adopt cloud infrastructure, automation, and AI agents, the number of NHIs has grown far faster than the number of human accounts, making them a distinct and increasingly important category within identity and access management.
Why It Matters
NHIs have become one of the largest and least governed parts of the modern attack surface. A typical 100-person company now runs more than 2,000 non-human identities, and machine identities can outnumber human employees by 45 to 1. Unlike human accounts, NHIs rarely go through onboarding or offboarding reviews, often hold static long-lived credentials, and are frequently over-privileged because permissions were granted once and never revisited. When they are compromised, leaked in code repositories, or left active after a project ends, they give attackers a quiet, monitored-blind path into production systems. This is not a theoretical risk: 80% of identity breaches now involve a non-human identity (OWASP NHI Top 10, 2025). Regulators have taken notice too — NIS2 enforcement from October 2026 explicitly covers service accounts and machine credentials under ANSSI's ReCyF Objective 13, meaning NHI governance is becoming a compliance requirement, not just a security best practice.
How Cydenti Helps
Cydenti builds a continuously updated inventory of every non-human identity across your cloud, SaaS, and code environments, mapping each one to its owner, permissions, and actual usage. Instead of relying on spreadsheets or one-off audits, security teams get a live identity graph that flags orphaned accounts, excessive privileges, and toxic combinations before they're exploited. This visibility turns NHI management from a reactive scramble into an ongoing, measurable practice, and forms the foundation for everything else Cydenti does.
Explore →Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a non-human identity and a human identity?
A human identity is tied to a person who authenticates interactively, typically with MFA, and is subject to onboarding/offboarding processes. A non-human identity belongs to software, a machine, or a process, authenticates programmatically using keys, tokens, or certificates, and often runs continuously without the same lifecycle oversight or accountability applied to human accounts.
Why are non-human identities considered a security risk?
NHIs often hold long-lived, static credentials, accumulate excessive permissions over time, and lack clear ownership, making them attractive and hard-to-detect targets. Because they operate outside normal login monitoring, a compromised NHI can grant an attacker persistent, low-visibility access to critical systems for extended periods.
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