Identities now transcend human boundaries. Inside every line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions between systems and services, essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How can we ensure the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities that are lifeless but critical to the functioning of critical systems?
Let’s break it down.
The challenge
Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packaged in containers. These microservices function similarly to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its assigned task, whether processing data, verifying credentials, or retrieving information from databases. By communicating seamlessly via APIs, they ensure the seamless functioning of services for us users. However, to use these APIs, microservices must authenticate using non-human identities and secrets, similar to programmatic access keys.
Let us now consider the consequences if an attacker were to obtain one of these non-human identities or secrets. The potential for chaos is immense: secrets could be stolen, data tampered with, or even the entire system could paralyze.
Without strong security measures, a system is largely exposed to these types of attacks. Businesses need to protect data to ensure data security and systems function properly.
The solution
What you need is a full suite of features to meet your non-human identity management needs.
Complete visibility of secrets
Managing non-human identities and secrets at scale requires a panoramic view of all machine identities in your systems. From ownership details to permissions and risk levels, all of this critical information needs to be centralized, allowing security teams to fully understand the secrets landscape. No more guessing games: just clear information about non-human identities and their potential vulnerabilities.
Real-time monitoring and protection
To effectively monitor non-human identities, it is critical to use real-time monitoring, allowing for constant vigilance over sensitive information. Any signs of questionable behavior should be detected early and reported without delay. Whether it’s an unauthorized access attempt or an unexpected change in permissions, constantly monitoring your secrets ensures a proactive defense against potential risks. Mere warning is not enough; a comprehensive solution that provides actionable measures for immediate resolution is critical when suspicious activity occurs.
Centralized governance
Centralized governance simplifies secrets management for non-human identities. By consolidating all security controls into a single, streamlined platform, it becomes easy to oversee access to non-human identities. From identification to prioritization and remediation, ongoing collaboration is required between security and development teams, ensuring everyone is on the same page when it comes to protecting digital assets.
Detection of vulnerabilities and elimination of false positives
Not all alerts guarantee immediate alarm. Therefore, vulnerability detection must go beyond simply highlighting potential risks; should distinguish between genuine threats and false alarms. By eliminating false positives and focusing on real vulnerabilities, your security teams can address issues efficiently without being distracted by unnecessary distractions.
This is what it takes to manage the covert security of non-human identities. It’s what obsesses us here at Entro.
Why I’m coming in
With Entro’s non-human identity management solution, organizations can:
- Gain complete visibility into the secrets that protect code, APIs, containers, and serverless functions spread across various systems and environments.
- Identify and prioritize security risks, resolve vulnerabilities, and prevent unauthorized access to critical financial systems and data.
- Automate the remediation of identified security risks, saving time and resources for security and development teams.
- Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements such as SOC2, GDPR and others by maintaining robust access controls and security measures.
Get in touch with us to learn more about Entro’s machine secrets and identity management solution.
