Full Report
Non-human employees are becoming the future of cybersecurity, and enterprises need to prepare accordingly. As organizations scale Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud automation, there is exponential growth in Non-Human Identities (NHIs), including bots, AI agents, service accounts and automation scripts. In fact, 51% of respondents in ConductorOne’s 2025 Future of Identity Security Report
Analysis Summary
# Main Topic
The rapid scaling of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud automation is leading to an exponential growth in Non-Human Identities (NHIs)—including bots, AI agents, service accounts, and automation scripts—which now pose an equivalent or greater security challenge than traditional human accounts in modern enterprises.
## Key Points
- 51% of respondents stated that the security of NHIs is as important as that of human accounts, highlighting a significant shift in identity security focus.
- NHIs often operate outside the scope of traditional Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems, creating a major security blind spot.
- A key risk is that NHIs frequently possess over-permissioned standing access across infrastructure, cloud environments, and CI/CD pipelines, with access rarely reviewed or revoked.
- Security risks include credentials hardcoded into scripts, secrets embedded in source code, and a critical lack of logging or monitoring for NHI activity.
- In cloud environments, non-human users significantly outnumber human users, expanding the overall attack surface.
## Threat Actors
- The report focuses on **cybercriminals** exploiting these vulnerabilities, rather than enumerating specific named threat groups.
- Motivation appears to be leveraging the powerful, often overlooked, access held by compromised NHIs.
## TTPs
- **Credential Exposure:** Utilizing credentials hardcoded into scripts or secrets embedded in source code.
- **Access Abuse:** Exploiting broad, standing access granted (often permanently) to infrastructure and cloud assets.
- **Lack of Detection:** Exploiting minimal or non-existent logging/monitoring of NHI activity, allowing for prolonged undetected compromise.
## Affected Systems
- Organizations scaling **AI and cloud automation**.
- **CI/CD pipelines**.
- **Cloud environments** (where non-human users significantly outnumber human users).
- Systems secured by **traditional IAM systems** that often exclude NHIs from policy scope.
## Mitigations
- **Zero Trust Implementation:** Apply zero trust principles to all NHIs, requiring authentication and authorization for every interaction.
- **Least-Privilege Access:** Enforce Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC) and implement time-based credential expiration policies.
- **Ephemeral Access:** Utilize Just-in-Time (JIT) access mechanisms to eliminate standing access.
- **Secrets Management:** Automate credential rotation and replace static credentials with short-lived API tokens that auto-expire after deployment or task completion.
- **Visibility and Monitoring:** Ensure all NHI activity is logged, monitored, and auditable.
## Conclusion
The proliferation of NHIs necessitates a fundamental overhaul of enterprise security strategies. Failure to integrate NHIs into modern IAM frameworks, Zero Trust, and least-privilege models will result in significant, persistent security blind spots highly susceptible to long-term compromise. Organizations must immediately focus on gaining visibility and applying stringent credential management practices to all automated and non-human access vectors.