Introduction: The Expanding Attack Surface of Identity
In today’s digital landscape, secrets and Non-Human Identities (NHIs) form the connective tissue of nearly every enterprise system. Whether it’ s a database password, an API key embedded in a script, or a Kubernetes service account token, these credentials enable the communication, automation, and scalability that modern infrastructure demands.
Yet the very ubiquity of secrets and NHIs makes them an urgent risk. Secrets sprawl across environments without clear ownership or lifecycle. NHIs — such as CI/CD roles, cloud service accounts, and machine-learning pipeline agents — operate autonomously, often with little oversight. And attackers know this. Over the past several years, credential-based breaches have become routine, from the theft of hardcoded AWS keys to the misuse of over-permissioned machine accounts.
This white paper offers a comprehensive, security-focused guide to controlling secrets and NHIs. It outlines practical strategies that security teams can deploy today — not just to reduce risk, but to align with compliance frameworks and enable secure automation at scale.
