Machine identities are digital entities used to identify, authenticate and authorize machines, devices and IT infrastructure as well as the applications, cloud workloads and automated processes within an IT infrastructure. Machine identities represent a broad category that includes any digital identity not associated with or operated by a human. They can be automatically created and terminated on demand to dynamically scale to meet the needs of the business.
What are the differences between machine identities vs. non-human identities?
Machine identities are often also referred to as non-human identities. In many cases, security and cloud teams use these terms interchangeably.
Some vendors and service providers do prefer one over the other, noting that there are key differences between the two depending on the overall purpose and interaction with cloud and IT resources.
For example, a non-human identity can refer to identities used by services or applications to interact with other cloud resources and can exclude the identities associated with physical devices, such as IoT devices. In contrast, a machine identity can be used to authenticate and manage devices rather than services and involves securing and managing certificates, keys and other credentials that identify and control access for machines, such as servers, laptops or IoT devices. With virtualization and cloud-based services these distinctions are blurring and are less widely used.
What is machine identity management?
There are various practices and technologies used to establish, manage, and protect the identities of machines within a network or system. These include:
- Digital certificates: Issued by trusted certificate authorities (CAs), these contain device or server identity information and their public keys. They are managed by certificate lifecycle management (CLM) and authenticate device identities during secure communication.
- Cryptographic keys: Machines use public and private key pairs for encryption, decryption and digital signatures, ensuring data confidentiality, integrity and authenticity.
- IoT security role: Machine identities are crucial in securing communication among IoT devices, allowing only authorized devices to access sensitive data and perform actions.
- Lifecycle management (LCM): Involves tasks like issuing, renewing and revoking certificates, and securely managing cryptographic keys. LCM is used to keep secrets safe.
- Compliance and standards: Organizations must adhere to industry regulations mandating secure machine identities to protect data and prevent unauthorized access.
- Secrets: A broad term encompassing sensitive information such as credentials (passwords, API keys), encryption keys, certificates (SSL/TLS) and configuration data (database connection strings). These elements are crucial for securing and managing machine identities and communications.
What are the challenges of machine identity security?
Compromised machine identities can lead to unauthorized access, data breaches and other security incidents. Attackers could manipulate keys or exploit stolen certificates to impersonate legitimate machines, evade authentication protocols and gain unauthorized entry to sensitive resources.
Unlike human identities, machine identities cannot utilize authentication capabilities such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) using biometrics, a memorized password or an identity card or mobile phone. Machine identities pose different security challenges, and instead use digital certificates, SSH keys, IP addresses and other unique characteristics associated with the workload or container, together with secrets or other credentials to provide authentication.
Ensuring the security of machine identities typically requires consistent machine identity management with robust access management capabilities.
What are the best practices of machine identity management?
In addition to secrets management, machine identity management involves issuing and managing digital certificates from trusted CAs for secure authentication and communication. Certificates, along with cryptographic keys used for encryption and digital signatures, are crucial for ensuring data integrity and confidentiality to prevent operational outages. CLMs ensure stable authentication and help prevent operational outages which disrupt workflows, compromise data security and cost huge sums of money.
Best practices include:
- Implement least privilege and regular audits: Always assign the minimum permissions necessary for non-human identities to perform their functions. Regularly audit these permissions and the activities of these identities to ensure they are up-to-date and appropriate, minimizing security risks and potential misuse.
- Secure credential management: Use dedicated vaults or key management systems to protect sensitive information. Avoid hard-coding credentials directly into scripts or applications, as this can lead to security vulnerabilities. Instead, use secure methods to inject credentials. dynamically.
- Enhance security with strong authentication: MFA adds an extra layer of security and reduces the likelihood of unauthorized access, even if credentials are compromised.
- Ensure logging, monitoring, and incident response: Integrate non-human identities into your incident response plans to address security issues promptly and effectively.
Learn more about machine identities
- Why Machine Identity is as Important as User Identity to Infrastructure Security – CyberArk Developer
- Why Machine identities Are Essential Strands in Your Zero Trust Strategy (cyberark.com)
- Understanding APIs and How Attackers Abuse Them to Steal Data (cyberark.com)
- Essentials to Securing Kubernetes Secrets with Secrets Management – CyberArk Developer
