Machine Identity Management: The Overlooked Cyber Risk and What to Do About It

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The term “identity” in cybersecurity usually summons images of human users: employees, contractors, customers signing in, multi‑factor authentication, password resets. But lurking behind the scenes is another, rapidly expanding domain of identities: non‑human, machine identities. These are the digital credentials, certificates, service accounts, keys, tokens, device identities, secrets, etc., that allow machines, services, devices, and software to authenticate, communicate, and operate securely.

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Machine identities are often under‑covered, under‑audited—and yet they constitute a growing, sometimes catastrophic attack surface. This post defines what we mean by machine identity, explores why it is risky, surveys real incidents, lays out best practices, tools, and processes, and suggests metrics and a roadmap to help organizations secure their non‑human identities at scale.

What Are Machine Identities

Broadly, a machine identity is any credential, certificate, or secret that a non‑human entity uses to prove its identity and communicate securely. Key components include:

  • Digital certificates and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

  • Cryptographic keys

  • Secrets, tokens, and API keys

  • Device and workload identities

These identities are used in many roles: securing service‑to‑service communications, granting access to back‑end databases, code signing, device authentication, machine users (e.g. automated scripts), etc.

Why Machine Identities Are Risky

Here are major risk vectors around machine identities:

  1. Proliferation & Sprawl

  2. Shadow Credentials / Poor Visibility

  3. Lifecycle Mismanagement

  4. Misuse or Overprivilege

  5. Credential Theft / Compromise

  6. Operational & Business Risks

Real Incidents and Misuse

Incident What happened Root cause / machine identity failure Impact
Microsoft Teams Outage (Feb 2020) Microsoft users unable to sign in / use Teams/Office services An authentication certificate expired. Several-hour outage for many users; disruption of business communication and collaboration.
Microsoft SharePoint / Outlook / Teams Certificate Outage (2023) SharePoint / Teams / Outlook service problems Mis‑assignment / misuse of TLS certificate or other certificate mis‑configuration. Users experienced interruption; even if the downtime was short, it affected trust and operations.
NVIDIA / LAPSUS$ breach Code signing certificates stolen in breach Attackers gained access to private code signing certificates; used them to sign malware. Malware signed with legitimate certificates; potential for large-scale spread, supply chain trust damage.
GitHub (Dec 2022) Attack on “machine account” / repositories; code signing certificates stolen or exposed A compromised personal access token associated with a machine account allowed theft of code signing certificates. Risk of malicious software, supply chain breach.

Best Practices for Securing Machine Identities

  1. Establish Full Inventory & Ownership

  2. Adopt Lifecycle Management

  3. Least Privilege & Segmentation

  4. Use Secure Vaults / Secret Management Systems

  5. Automation and Policy Enforcement

  6. Monitoring, Auditing, Alerting

  7. Incident Recovery and Revocation Pathways

  8. Integrate with CI/CD / DevOps Pipelines

Tools & Vendor vs In‑House

Requirement Key Features to Look For Vendor Solutions In-House Considerations
Discovery & Inventory Multi-environment scanning, API key/secret detection AppViewX, CyberArk, Keyfactor Manual discovery may miss shadow identities.
Certificate Lifecycle Management Automated issuance, revocation, monitoring CLM tools, PKI-as-a-Service Governance-heavy; skill-intensive.
Secret Management Vaults, access controls, integration HashiCorp Vault, cloud secret managers Requires secure key handling.
Least Privilege / Access Governance RBAC, minimal permissions, JIT access IAM platforms, Zero Trust tools Complex role mapping.
Monitoring & Anomaly Detection Logging, usage tracking, alerts SIEM/XDR integrations False positives, tuning challenges.

Integrating Machine Identity Management with CI/CD / DevOps

  • Automate identity issuance during deployments.

  • Scan for embedded secrets and misconfigurations.

  • Use ephemeral credentials.

  • Store secrets securely within pipelines.

Monitoring, Alerting, Incident Recovery

  • Set up expiry alerts, anomaly detection, usage logging.

  • Define incident playbooks.

  • Plan for credential compromise and certificate revocation.

Roadmap & Metrics

Suggested Roadmap Phases

  1. Baseline & Discovery

  2. Policy & Ownership

  3. Automate Key Controls

  4. Monitoring & Audit

  5. Resilience & Recovery

  6. Continuous Improvement

Key Metrics To Track

  • Identity count and classification

  • Privilege levels and violations

  • Rotation and expiration timelines

  • Incidents involving machine credentials

  • Audit findings and policy compliance

More Info and Help

Need help mapping, securing, and governing your machine identities? MicroSolved has decades of experience helping organizations of all sizes assess and secure non-human identities across complex environments. We offer:

  • Machine Identity Risk Assessments

  • Lifecycle and PKI Strategy Development

  • DevOps and CI/CD Identity Integration

  • Secrets Management Solutions

  • Incident Response Planning and Simulations

Contact us at info@microsolved.com or visit www.microsolved.com to learn more.

References

  1. https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/cybersecurity-101/identity-protection/machine-identity-management/

  2. https://www.cyberark.com/what-is/machine-identity-security/

  3. https://appviewx.com/blogs/machine-identity-management-risks-and-challenges-facing-your-security-teams/

  4. https://segura.security/post/machine-identity-crisis-a-security-risk-hiding-in-plain-sight

  5. https://www.threatdown.com/blog/stolen-nvidia-certificates-used-to-sign-malware-heres-what-to-do/

  6. https://www.keyfactor.com/blog/2023s-biggest-certificate-outages-what-we-can-learn-from-them/

  7. https://www.digicert.com/blog/github-stolen-code-signing-keys-and-how-to-prevent-it

 

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

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