The Crucial Role Of Non-Human Identity And Secrets Management

Cybersecurity is a paramount concern for enterprises. A burgeoning challenge within this realm is the management and protection of Non-Human Identities and secrets, such as API keys, service accounts, and cloud access tokens.

As organizations continue to expand their use of cloud services and automated processes, the proliferation of these digital identities and secrets poses significant security risks. Understanding the value and importance of NHI and secrets management is critical for safeguarding enterprise data and infrastructure.

The Rising Threat of Unmanaged NHIs and Secrets

Enterprise cloud adoption has led to the widespread use of NHIs—programmatic identities used by applications to access sensitive data and services. These include API keys, service accounts, connection strings, and access tokens. Unlike human identities, which are typically managed through centralized identity and access management systems, NHIs often lack proper oversight. They are frequently scattered across various locations, including vaults, code repositories, wikis, and communication platforms like Slack.

This scattered nature and the sheer volume of NHIs—often outnumbering human identities by a factor of 45 to 1—create numerous security vulnerabilities. Unmanaged NHIs with excessive permissions can be easily exploited by malicious actors, leading to data breaches and other security incidents. According to industry reports, compromised secrets are responsible for a significant portion of security breaches, highlighting the urgent need for robust NHI and secrets management.

The Imperative for Comprehensive NHI and Secrets Management

Effective NHI and secrets management involves several key practices:

1. Discovery and Inventory: Organizations must identify all NHIs and secrets within their systems. This includes understanding where these identities are created, stored, and exposed.
2. Contextual Enrichment: Each NHI should be enriched with business context, detailing which applications use specific tokens, the resources accessed, the human owners, and the permissions granted. This contextual information is vital for assessing the potential impact of a compromised NHI.
3. Risk Analysis and Posture Management: Security teams need to perform static risk analyses to identify misconfigurations, excessive privileges, and compliance breaches. Regular posture management ensures that NHIs are properly vaulted, rotated, and decommissioned when no longer needed.
4. Detection and Response: Advanced capabilities such as Non-Human Identity Detection and Response enable organizations to monitor NHI activities and detect abnormal behavior that may indicate a security breach.
5. Seamless Integration: Solutions for NHI and secrets management should integrate seamlessly with existing development and operational workflows. This ensures that security measures do not hinder productivity or innovation.

Entro’s Role in Enhancing NHI and Secrets Security

One company addressing the challenges of NHI and secrets management is Entro Security. Recently, Entro announced an $18 million Series A funding round, backed by key investors like Dell Technologies Capital, Hyperwise Ventures, and StageOne Ventures.

Entro’s solution discovers NHIs at their creation, storage, or exposure points and provides a full inventory with enriched business context. The platform’s risk analysis and posture management capabilities help organizations identify and mitigate security risks associated with NHIs. Additionally, Entro’s NHIDR functionality tracks all activities around NHIs and secrets, enabling real-time detection of suspicious behavior.

This frictionless, agentless approach allows organizations to deploy Entro’s platform quickly and start benefiting from enhanced security and compliance.

I connected with Entro Security CEO Itzik Alvas for more insight. He explained, “The Entro platform enriches each non-human identity with business context creating a lineage map of which application uses what token to access what resource and other vital data around it, such as who the human owner is, when it was last rotated, what permission the token has, etc.”

Alvas added, “This information is crucial to understanding the blast radius of all NHIs within the organization.”

The Future of NHI and Secrets Management

As enterprises continue to embrace digital transformation, the importance of NHI and secrets management will only grow.

Effective management of these identities is crucial for preventing security breaches, protecting sensitive data, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. Solutions that provide comprehensive visibility, contextual enrichment, and advanced detection and response capabilities will be essential for addressing the evolving cybersecurity landscape.

By adopting robust NHI and secrets management practices, organizations can mitigate risks, enhance security, and support their digital initiatives with confidence.