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8/27/2026 NHIM - Lifecycle Management Introduction
Non-Human Identities (NHIs) need to be governed end to end, under a Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) program, to ensure security and compliance. Shadow AI has compounded this problem. The NHIM governance program should manage the initial provisioning of the NHI to the access rights changes and the final de-provisioning. It should also include the implementation of policies and controls that enable least privilege, just-in-time access, and removal of identities to reduce the attack surface. Importance of Lifecycle Management The principles of Lifecycle management remain the same for NHI except that they need to be more stringent and monitored. Insufficient controls on the Lifecycle of NHIs increases the attack surface. It could be an over permissioned account, unrotated or long-lived credentials or NHIs without traceable ownership. With the AI agents the Non-Human Identity Lifecycle compounds as these can be autonomous and, in some cases, give rise to ephemeral agents with certain level of access. Use Cases Decommissioning Unlike the Workforce/Human identity, the NHIs typically do not carry a trigger like a termination or end of employment, to indicate deactivation or removal. This results in active credentials with access to sensitive data, applications, APIs, etc. The following should be implemented as part of the NHI Lifecycle processes:
Creation Actively manage NHI creation. This should be a policy implementation across the board. Developers and infrastructure admins must not be permitted to embed credentials in IaC, scripts, or code without explicit approval. A workflow needs to be in place for any NHI creation. The following principles should be implemented as part of this:
Vaulting and Rotation On creation, set default properties for the NHI to be rotated on a set timer. It can be every 30, 60, or 90 days depending upon the Risk categorization of the NHI/target application.
Continuous Authentication and Authorization Static token grants or permission grants like roles or entitlements pose a threat. Once leaked or hijacked, the chances of damage to the infrastructure or data go up multiple times. The NHIs do not have a Multi Factor Authentication set up and hence a stricter dynamic policy needs to be set up. The following can be implemented to enforce this, if not already implemented:
Regular Access Reviews It’s common for the NHIs to not be managed directly. There are situations where an NHI could remain active beyond its end date or continue working with more permissions than were intended. Reviews should be a regular process, especially for the NHIs. This policy can be separate from the workload identities and should be implemented at slightly increased frequency as some NHIs can be short-lived.
Conclusion Unlike workforce identities, the NHIs and specially AI agents, often do not follow formal and process-oriented creation and access modification paths – with a lot of this action happening on the fly by various teams. Managing the Lifecycle of NHIs thus becomes the most crucial part of any NHIM program to ensure security and compliance. Disciplined creation, vaulting and rotation, continuous authentication and authorization, timely decommissioning, and regular access reviews together close the gaps that most commonly lead to over-permissioned accounts, long-lived credentials, and orphaned identities. The aim of these best practices is to help understand the challen Introduction Credential based breaches and the realization that there might be identities which are not being governed because they are ‘not visible’ was the original trigger for Non-Human Identity Management as a concept. These identities do not represent a human and can be created within any system by the developer, administrator, application owner and now the AI agents. The Discovery of Non-Human Identities is thus often the recommended starting point of a Non-Human Identity Management program. With SaaS and Cloud Service Providers (CSP) proliferation in the last decade and subsequently the API driven approaches, the machine-to-machine unsupervised interactions went up. Credentials of all forms have multiplied. A few commonly used ones are -
The Risk Security risk Identities created in this process are typically not strongly governed and have access assigned arbitrarily. As such, the organizations run a huge risk with excess privileges assigned and a possibility of exposure. It affects the overall Cyber Security Posture. Compliance Discovery of identities of any kind with unauthorized access leads to audit findings and compliance issues. This increases the existing security teams’ workload with discovery and closures of such findings taking months to complete. Solution Approach The primary goal of the Non-Human identity program is to start with the discovery of such identities. Once discovered, known intelligence inputs can be implemented to classify the identities based on access risk. Once discovered and categorized, remediation can be initiated as part of the Risk management process. A mature solution approach is essential to planning on how to identify and aggregate Non-Human Identities into a central repository. A suitable technical solution can be selected from the available vendors. The NHIM vendors specialize in connecting to targets using connectors which are purpose built for scanning and locating such identities. A typical Identity Governance and Administration tool might have limitations here because they are purpose built for importing identities from sources like the HR system, supplier system or other third-party contractor onboarding tools. Step 1 – Identify/Discover
Step 2 – Categorize
Step 3 – Visualize & Report
A key element to understanding the cyber security risk posed by the NHIs is to understand the access they have to various applications via various means – developers, code, API tools, Vaults, manual access, Remote Desktops, etc. During product evaluation, identify tools that can create mappings and present them in a easy to identify interfaces like charts, maps or flow diagrams. Also look for ready-made reporting for various compliance requirements that you might be looking for. Out-of-the-box reporting can identify and generate the most appropriate compliance reporting that can be used to govern the NHIs.  Conclusion
Discovery and classification of Non-Human Identities is the first step in a Non-Human Identity Management program. A suitable tool and a strong program intent combined with process will ensure that a reliable repository of NHIs is built as a foundation. Categorization ensures that the high risk NHIs can be taken up first for remediation and risk reduction. Swipe through this carousel to see the key challenges and practical solutions that can help businesses bridge the gap between legacy pain points and third-party access governance.👇  Zero Trust is often marketed as a universal solution, but for enterprises, it’s a continuous journey rather than a one-time fix. Achieving Zero Trust architecture requires implementing tools and strategies that align with long-term security goals. This approach involves integrating various components, including Identity and Access Management (IAM), network security, and endpoint protection, working together to create a robust security framework.
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