How to scale non-human identity management with secrets management

Non-human identity management in modern systems poses challenges due to the proliferation of machine identities and secrets, which can quickly become unmanageable, leading to security vulnerabilities. This article outlines a five-step framework to address these challenges: maintaining a continuous inventory of machine identities and credentials, enforcing ownership and accountability, designing for least privilege access, automating provisioning and rotation via deployment pipelines, and continuously monitoring and cleaning up inactive identities and secrets. By treating machine identities and secrets as a unified system rather than separate entities, organizations can improve visibility, reduce security risks, and simplify audits, while tools like Doppler facilitate the integration of these practices, offering a centralized platform for managing identity activity and enforcing security policies. This approach not only helps developers manage machine identities efficiently but also provides security teams with enhanced control and oversight, ultimately making systems less susceptible to exploitation.