Why Reducing Risk from Non-Human Identities Shouldn’t Break Your Infrastructure

Modern enterprises run on automation. But behind every line of code deploying infrastructure, moving data, or triggering workflows is something often overlooked: a non-human identity (NHI).

These NHIs—service accounts, machine credentials, API tokens, CI/CD integrations—outnumber human users by orders of magnitude. And they’re everywhere.

Yet in too many organizations, they’re still unmanaged, invisible, and dangerously overprivileged.

Why NHIs Are So Hard to Manage

Reports talking about the coming NHI apocalypse cite how the ratio of NHIs to humans has jumped to 45:1. 

But the challenge isn’t just scale, it’s visibility over what identities are in your environment, what their privileges are, and how (if at all) those privileges are being used.

Many if not most NHIs are created ad hoc by scripts or developers at a rapid pace that is hard to keep track of. In fast-moving development environments, CI/CD pipelines, automated workflows, and cloud-native tools rapidly create new NHIs. These identities are often set up for convenience, granted elevated privileges, and left without oversight as developers move on to other tasks 

And if we’re being honest, at the rate of their creation and general lack of expiration, no one’s quite sure what they still do or if they’re used at all. 

Adding to the pile of difficulties is the fact that NHIs are excluded from most identity lifecycle processes so don’t expect to track them in your IdP.

The result? Orphaned service accounts. Dormant API tokens. Admin-level privileges granted “just in case” and never reviewed.

The Cloud Security Alliance reports that most organizations lack even a basic inventory of their machine identities, let alone insight into how they’re used.

The Problem: You Can’t Reduce Risk Without Risking Breakage

Security leaders know the math: more access equals more risk.

But with NHIs, removing permissions isn’t simple. These identities are deeply wired into core systems. One change, one revoked permission, can break a process, delay a deployment, or knock out customer-facing services.

So, instead of fixing it, most teams do what feels safest: nothing.

Doing nothing isn’t exactly a viable option given how security teams are now acutely aware that they have a problem out there in their environment. This is hardly a new problem, with Gartner predicting way back in 2019 that by 2025, 90% of cloud security failures will stem from mismanaged identities. Non-human identities have only served to exacerbate the challenge.

It’s not because people don’t care. It’s because revoking access feels riskier than leaving it alone.

Quarantine: A Smarter Alternative to Revocation

Thankfully you don’t need to remove privileges to reduce risk.

Instead of deleting or modifying permissions, Apono gives you the option to apply a deny policy. This effectively “quarantines” the NHI, blocking its access without deleting the identity or altering infrastructure.

Nothing breaks. No services go down. And if access for a “zombie” NHI turns out to be necessary after all, just revert the quarantine.

This gives security teams non-disruptive control over risky or unused identities. The quarantine feature applies a deny policy to the NHI, effectively preventing access without modifying the underlying infrastructure. This allows teams to maintain control over risky identities without the fear of breaking existing workflows or systems.

Let’s see how Apono empowers teams to securely manage their NHIs.

The Modern Lifecycle of Managing NHIs (Without Breaking Things)

Reducing risk from NHIs without compromising reliability is an ongoing process that starts with understanding what you have in your environment.

1. Discover What Exists

You can’t secure what you can’t see. Start with discovery:

• Run an assessment in the Access Discovery to identify all NHIs across cloud, infrastructure, and SaaS environments.
  
• This will map what permissions they hold, who owns them, and where they’re used.
  

This creates a visibility baseline.

2. Prioritize by Risk

Not all NHIs are created equal. Use our risk-based analysis to:

• Flag dormant zombie identities with no recent activity.
  
• Highlight high-privilege accounts and sensitive access.
  
• Identify NHIs with broad exposure across environments that can expand your blast radius.
  

Focus your efforts on the highest risk first.

3. Recommend Smart Remediation

With context in hand, take targeted actions with Apono’s recommended fixes:

• Quarantine unused NHIs with deny policies.
  
• Start with your highest risk entitlements and privileges.
  
• Limit privilege scope based on actual usage and business logic context.

The goal isn’t mass removal. It’s smarter access management. This lowers the barrier to action since no code or infrastructure changes are required. Security can act quickly without fear of disruption. 

You can always go in later to revoke after the owners have reviewed and approved.

4. Monitor, Reassess, and Improve

After the initial discovery and risk prioritization, Apono’s platform enables ongoing monitoring of NHI usage. Make identity management an ongoing practice:

• Continuously monitor usage and access trends, further reducing privileges where it reduces risk and makes sense for the business.
  
• Reassess quarantined identities over time.
  
• Support periodic reviews aligned with audits or compliance needs.
  

As new risks emerge, Apono’s smart remediation capabilities allow security teams to take proactive steps, ensuring that the NHI landscape remains secure over time. This turns access management into a dynamic, auditable, and data-driven process.

Security Without Friction

Unmanaged NHIs are a growing attack surface. But traditional approaches like removing permissions or deleting accounts are often too risky to implement.

Quarantine changes the equation. It’s safe, reversible, and effective.

Security teams gain control. Risk goes down. And the business keeps moving.

Ready to take control of your non-human identities without disrupting your business? 

Reach out today for a demo or see how Apono’s NHI management capabilities can help you reduce risk over every identity—human and non-human—in one unified platform while maintaining business continuity.