Cyber threats have evolved far beyond targeting just human users. Today, non-human identities—commonly known as machine identities—such as APIs, automated scripts, bots, and application accounts are pivotal in modern software development practices. While these machine identities enhance efficiency, scalability, and functionality, they also introduce a vast and often underestimated attack surface.
To address these growing concerns, the OWASP Non-Human Identity (NHI) Top 10 provides a comprehensive framework of the most critical security risks related to machine identities. This prioritized list is not just for awareness—it’s an actionable guide designed to help developers and cybersecurity professionals understand, protect, and manage their non-human attack surfaces.
The risks highlighted by the NHI Top 10 are ranked based on critical factors such as exploitability, prevalence, detectability, and impact. By addressing these vulnerabilities, organizations can build a stronger defense against the threats that machine identities introduce throughout the development lifecycle.
Whether you're a developer integrating machine identities into applications or a security expert aiming to safeguard an organization, understanding these risks is no longer optional; it's essential. Stay tuned as we explore what makes non-human identities such a critical focus of modern cybersecurity and how the NHI Top 10 can guide us toward more secure practices.
What Are Machine Identities and Why Do They Matter?
Machine identities represent the digital credentials, tokens, and certificates used by applications, APIs, containers, and other automated systems to authenticate and communicate within modern architectures. Unlike human users, machine identities operate with little oversight, creating a massive, unmonitored attack surface.
The OWASP NHI Top 10 seeks to shed light on the security risks unique to machine identities, offering actionable insights to help organizations secure their machine identities while maintaining efficient workflows.
A Closer Look at the OWASP NHI Top 10
Adapted for real-world application, the NHI Top 10 provides a comprehensive examination of the risks machine identities introduce. Here’s how machine identities contribute to vulnerabilities in each category:
1. Improper Offboarding
When machine identities like service accounts and credentials are not decommissioned properly, they become low-hanging fruit for attackers. Machine identities often outlive their original purpose, remaining accessible long after the associated service is retired. This is commonly due to a lack of automated lifecycle management for machine identities.
Solution: Automate the offboarding of machine identities using centralized identity governance tools. Ensure unused machine identities are identified, removed, and adequately audited to prevent "zombie" identities.
2. Secret Leakage
Secrets such as API keys, access tokens, and encryption certificates are often embedded within source code or stored in plaintext. Leaked secrets greatly elevate the risk of unauthorized access and exploitation.
Solution: Adopt secure secret management tools to store and distribute sensitive credentials. Regularly scan repositories for exposed secrets and integrate automated alerts into CI/CD pipelines.
3. Vulnerable Third-Party Machine Identities
Third-party tools and plugins often come with dependencies on machine identities for integration. Compromised or outdated third-party applications can lead to exposed credentials and misuse of permissions.
Solution: Audit and monitor all third-party integrations. Establish strict policies for vendor compliance and regularly update external applications to mitigate risks.
4. Insecure Authentication
Some machine identities rely on obsolete or weak authentication mechanisms, making them vulnerable to attacks such as credential stuffing or token theft. This often results from a mismatch between the pace of technological advancements and the governance of machine identities.
Solution: Transition to authentication best practices like OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect (OIDC). Regularly review and upgrade authentication methods for all machine identities.
5. Overprivileged Machine Identities
Machine identities are frequently granted more permissions than necessary for their intended use. This overprovisioning becomes dangerous if the machine identity is compromised, allowing attackers broad access to systems and sensitive data.
Solution: Enforce the principle of least privilege (PoLP) consistently across all machine idetntities. Use role-based access control to define and restrict permissions granularly.
6. Insecure Cloud Deployment Configurations
Many machine identities in cloud-based environments rely on static credentials or improperly configured identity tokens. Mismanaged configurations can result in long-lasting, broad access to cloud resources.
Solution: Regularly validate identity tokens and use ephemeral credentials with automated expiration. Incorporate CI/CD security checks and centralized logging to detect misconfigurations early.
7. Long-Lived Secrets
Secrets with extended expiration dates—or worse, those that never expire—offer attackers an unbounded attack window once compromised.
Solution: Introduce short-lived, dynamic secrets issued at runtime. Automate the lifecycle management of machine identity secrets, implementing frequent rotations and manual expiration checks.
8. Environment Isolation
Machine identities often operate across multiple environments, such as development, staging, and production, without proper segmentation. This increases risks when testing and production use the same credentials, giving attackers a wider reach upon compromise.
Solution: Establish strict environment isolation policies. Ensure machine identities are unique to each environment and implement access controls to maintain segmentation.
9. Machine Identity Reuse
Reusing the same machine identity across multiple applications or services creates a massive security risk. If compromised, attackers could leverage the shared credentials to traverse systems with ease.
Solution: Assign unique machine identities for every application, service, or component. Centralize identity management to oversee the lifecycle and permissions of all machine identities.
10. Human Use of Machine Identities
Granting human access to machine identities for tasks such as debugging or maintenance poses a critical risk. Such practices complicate audit trails and amplify privileges unnecessarily.
Solution: Prohibit the manual use of machine identities by humans. Promote the use of human identities with temporary elevated access and maintain strict logging to ensure traceability.
Why Addressing Machine Identity Risks Is Critical
The rapid adoption of API-driven architectures, microservices, and automation has fueled an explosion in machine identities. Recent studies indicate that machine identities now outnumber human identities by over 100 to 1 in large enterprises. However, traditional Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies and tools often fall short in managing this growing attack surface.
Taking Action Now
The OWASP NHI Top 10 serves as a crucial guide for organizations to prioritize and tackle the unique challenges posed by machine identities. By adopting proactive solutions—like automated identity governance, secure secret storage, and regular auditing—businesses can mitigate risks and protect their digital ecosystems.
At CyberArk, we understand the complexities of managing machine identities at scale. Our dedicated machine identity security solutions help enterprises discover, monitor, and manage machine identities, enabling organizations to secure their operations effectively.