Source URL: https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/articles/compliance-is-falling-behind-in-the-age-of-non-human-identities
Source: CSA
Title: Compliance is Falling Behind with Non-Human Identities
Feedly Summary:
AI Summary and Description: Yes
**Summary:** The text emphasizes the critical importance of managing Non-Human Identities (NHIs) in the context of compliance frameworks such as PCI DSS, GDPR, and ISO 27001. It highlights significant compliance risks associated with unmanaged NHIs, which can outnumber human users by a substantial margin. The text outlines how neglecting these identities can lead to considerable gaps in visibility, accountability, credential management, and incident response, ultimately threatening organizational compliance and security.
**Detailed Description:**
– **The Growing Importance of NHIs:**
– NHIs include service accounts, IAM roles, API keys, and automation agents that are becoming integral to modern infrastructure.
– In many organizations, NHIs can outnumber human identities by over 90 to 1, indicating their critical role in system operations.
– **Compliance Framework Shortcomings:**
– Existing compliance models primarily focus on human users, leaving NHIs under-managed.
– Key areas where compliance gaps exist due to unmanaged NHIs include:
– **Visibility and Inventory:** Organizations struggle to maintain an updated inventory of NHIs, as highlighted in OWASP’s 2025 Top 10 Risks for NHIs.
– **Ownership and Accountability:** Compliance frameworks require traceable access rights, yet many NHIs lack clear ownership.
– **Credential Lifecycle Management:** Many organizations fail to rotate and manage credentials regularly, contrary to standards set by PCI DSS and NIST.
– **Monitoring and Incident Response:** Continuous monitoring is often lacking for NHIs, increasing vulnerability.
– **OWASP’s Call to Action:**
– The OWASP Top 10 for NHIs catalogues the risks associated with NHIs and their connection to compliance failures. Notable points include:
– Lack of inventory could violate ISO 27001 requirements.
– Over-permissioned NHIs could conflict with least-privilege policies.
– Secrets leakage could violate data protection laws.
– Missing access controls could undermine requirements of SOC 2 and NIS2.
– **Integration into Compliance Frameworks:**
– NHIs should be included in compliance frameworks through requirements from various standards, such as:
– **PCI DSS 4.0:** Enforces secret rotation and least privilege access.
– **ISO 27001:** Requires comprehensive asset inventory and identity lifecycle management.
– **SOC 2 and GDPR:** Demand audit trails and prevention of unauthorized access.
– **Practical Steps for Management and Compliance:**
– Organizations are advised to take three core actions:
– **Comprehensive Inventory:** Identify and map NHIs across services and internal systems.
– **Lifecycle Governance:** Automate credential management processes and regularly audit permissions.
– **Continuous Monitoring and Response:** Implement real-time tracking of NHI behavior to quickly identify and respond to unusual activities.
– **Strategic Imperative:**
– As digital ecosystems evolve, NHIs are increasingly becoming primary users, necessitating their inclusion in compliance strategies.
– Proactively managing NHIs not only mitigates compliance risks but also strengthens overall security posture and reduces the likelihood of audit failures.
This analysis highlights that recognizing and managing NHIs is essential for compliance and security professionals, as it directly impacts the effectiveness and resilience of an organization’s security and compliance framework.