". . securing every identity . ."
For years, Identity and Access Management (IAM) has been all about people. Employees logging into systems. Customers accessing portals. Contractors requesting permissions. The challenge was clear: verify the human, grant the right level of access, and keep the bad actors out.
Humans are no longer the majority.
Today, the fastest-growing category of identities inside enterprises aren’t people at all . . they’re machines. APIs talking to APIs. Bots completing tasks at midnight. Service accounts running critical infrastructure. Containers spinning up and down by the second.
In this new world, IAM must extend far beyond HR databases and user directories. The question is no longer “Who are you?” but also “What are you?”
The rise of Non-Human Identities
Think about it:
- Every API key is an identity.
- Every container or microservice has credentials.
- Every IoT device (from factory sensors to smart locks) requires authentication.
- Every bot or automation runs with a digital footprint as real as an employee badge.
Non-human identities are multiplying at a pace that human governance simply can’t keep up with. Where a company might have 10,000 employees, it could easily have 100,000+ machine identities. And unlike humans, these don’t quit, retire, or take holidays. They just proliferate, often unseen.
Why this is a big challenge
- Volume and velocity
- Machines scale at speeds people can’t.
- A single DevOps pipeline can spin up thousands of temporary identities in minutes.
- Visibility
- Most organisations don’t have a complete inventory of their machine identities.
- Shadow APIs, forgotten certificates, and stale service accounts create hidden risk.
- Vulnerability
- Attackers know that machine identities are often the weakest link.
- Compromised API keys or secrets can lead to catastrophic breaches.
In short: the attack surface is no longer just human. It’s EVERYTHING.
What needs to change in IAM
To keep pace, IAM must evolve into Identity Security for all identities:
- Zero Trust for Machines - Don’t just trust a certificate or API key; verify continuously.
- Automated Lifecycle Management - Provision, rotate, and retire machine identities at speed.
- Visibility & Discovery - Central inventories of all identities (human and non-human).
- Strong Secrets Management - No more hard-coded passwords or static keys.
- Policy-Driven Access - Define what machines can do, not just who they talk to.
The mindset shift? Treat machine identities with the same diligence, governance, and control as human ones (because attackers already do).
The human side of a non-human world
Here’s the irony: the more non-human identities exist, the more human expertise is needed to design and govern them. Enterprise Architects, IAM Specialists, and Cybersecurity Professionals who understand both the technical and strategic dimensions are in higher demand than ever.
It’s about enabling trust in a digital ecosystem where half your ‘users’ don’t even have fingerprints.
The future of IAM isn’t only about passwords, biometrics, or single sign-on for people. It’s about ensuring every thing in your organisation (human, machine, or bot) has an identity that can be trusted, managed, and retired.
From human to non-human, identity is the new perimeter. And getting it right is the next big challenge.
