Defining Non-Human Identity

Conventional IAM processes have a user-centric nature, that is, the users considered include the employees, those on contract and partners whose operations are easily monitored and regulated. The inherent problem with the traditional IAM systems is that they were not created to support the scale, independence, and intricacy of NHIs. However, NHIs are managed on a scale and in an environment (e.g., cloud, containerized infrastructure) that makes these more traditional models ineffective (NIST, 2020). These identities can be spanning across the cloud environments, on-premises systems, and legacy infrastructure and may lack a clear ownership, defined lifecycle management, or a strong security measure in place (KuppingerCole Analysts AG, n.d.). Moreover, NHI automation of its provisioning and decommissioning, necessary to make it efficient, adds new complexity and risks, which need to be mitigated with the help of thorough governance (Cloud Security Alliance, 2024).