Unifying Human and Non-Human Identities: The Next Evolution in Identity Security

Unifying Human and Non-Human Identities: The Next Evolution in Identity Security

In today’s digital landscape, organizations are increasingly relying on

both human and non-human identities (NHIs) — including service accounts,

APIs, bots, and automation scripts — to operate in cloud-native environments.

Traditionally, these identities were managed separately,

but that siloed approach no longer works. As identities become deeply interconnected,

this separation creates security blind spots that attackers can exploit.

The Evolving Risk Landscape

Modern security threats now span both human and machine-driven access.

Two of the most critical risks highlighted in OWASP’s 2025 Non-Human Identity Top 10 are:

1. Improper offboarding of service accounts, and
2. Overprivileged machine identities.

When a human employee leaves, their user account is usually deactivated.

But what about the service accounts they created?

Those often persist, with excessive privileges and no clear owner — a dangerous gap in your identity security posture.

How Identities Are Interconnected

Today, the lines between human and machine identities are increasingly blurred:

• SaaS and IaaS platforms often repurpose human identities as service accounts for automation.
• Machine-generated tokens inherit permissions from human owners.
• Sensitive data is accessed via both human accounts and non-human service accounts.

In practice, a single DevOps engineer might control dozens of NHIs.

Without proper oversight, these identities become unmanaged and overprivileged,

increasing your organization’s risk exposure.

Security Strategies Must Evolve

To address this complexity, a unified security model is essential —

one that accounts for the entire identity lifecycle across both human and non-human accounts.

Here’s what that looks like:

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Required for humans,

            but not always applicable to machine accounts.

           Alternatives like vaulted credentials and access governance are key.

Single Sign-On (SSO): Human users should authenticate through federated identity providers.

NHIs should leverage secure, managed secrets instead of hardcoded credentials.

• Least Privilege & Anomaly Detection: Humans access resources from diverse locations.

NHIs should operate from fixed IP ranges; any deviation should trigger alerts.

• Lifecycle Management: Human accounts need deprovisioning. NHIs must be reviewed for relevance, ownership, and risk.

A Unified Identity Future with Okta

Okta’s Identity Security Posture Management solution is built to meet this new reality. It provides visibility, context, and control across all identity types — human and non-human alike. By securing both sides of the identity equation, organizations can reduce risk, enhance compliance, and simplify access management at scale.

It’s time to stop managing identities in silos. Instead, adopt a unified, intelligent, and scalable approach to identity security.