Aembit, the non-human identity and access management (IAM) company, today released its 2024 Non-Human Identity Security Report, a definitive survey highlighting how organizations currently manage and protect non-human identities (NHIs) – such as applications, scripts, and service accounts. The report reveals a stunning, widespread reliance on outdated methods and manual practices that fail to provide adequate protection against the reality of increased NHI-focused breaches.
As non-human identities (NHIs) rapidly proliferate in modern IT environments, driven by the shift from monolithic to distributed architectures, widespread cloud adoption, and increasing automation, the report reveals a chasm between non-human and user identity security practices, with most organizations acknowledging their efforts to secure non-human identities are either lagging or struggling to keep pace.
The survey of IT and security professionals also shows that careless habits, such as storing long-term credentials directly in code, relying on spreadsheets for manual input, and sharing sensitive information via collaboration tools, are still prevalent. Additionally, many organizations face difficulty in securing NHIs in complex, multi-cloud environments, with concerns about inconsistent access management and unclear ownership of security processes.
Key findings of the survey include:
- IAM Maturity Gap: 88.5% of organizations admitted that their non-human IAM practices lag behind or are on par with their user IAM efforts.
- Low Confidence: Only 19.6% of respondents expressed strong confidence in their non-human IAM practices.
- Insecure Practices: 30.9% of respondents store long-term credentials in code and 23.7% share secrets through copying and pasting, such as via email or messaging apps.
- Outmoded Methods: 38.9% of respondents still use less-secure methods like secrets managers for non-human workload-to-workload authentication.
- Cloud Complexity: 35.6% of organizations struggle to manage non-human identity security across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
- Blind Spots: 23.5% of organizations are not sure of the biggest threat to their non-human identities.
“Organizations are starting to recognize that non-human identities are more than just background tools. As businesses rapidly automate, NHIs play a critical role in digital ecosystems and often handle sensitive data,” said David Goldschlag, co-founder and CEO of Aembit. “But, as our survey shows, NHI security remains very much a work in progress. While awareness is growing, most organizations still have significant shortfalls in how they secure these identities and the vital connections between them. It’s time to elevate non-human IAM to the same level of importance as user IAM.”
The survey, which included responses from 110 professionals, from developers to identity architects to CISOs, also revealed a growing need for more holistic approaches to managing non-human identities. As businesses expand across cloud environments, managing workload identities has become increasingly complex, with many organizations struggling to keep up due to piecemeal or legacy approaches.
Those interested can read the full survey by downloading it here.
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