Non-Human Identities (NHIs) vs. Machine Identities: Key Differences & Security Best Practices

Non-Human Identities (NHIs) are critical elements of modern IT ecosystems, facilitating communication among devices, applications, and services, and they extend beyond individual human users to include digital identities like devices, applications, automated processes, legal entities, and even animals with RFID chips. Although machine identities are a subset of NHIs, they differ in scope, management, and security concerns, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between the two for effective security measures. Organizations need to secure NHIs by employing best practices such as discovering and inventorying all NHIs, centralizing their management, enforcing least privilege access, strengthening authentication and credential security, and implementing continuous monitoring and threat detection. By understanding and managing these distinctions, organizations can mitigate security risks and ensure that NHIs serve as valuable assets rather than liabilities, particularly in complex, cloud-driven environments.

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