Introducing Machine Identity Management to strengthen IAM for non-human identities

Machine Identity Management (MIM) is an essential evolution of traditional Identity and Access Management (IAM), designed to secure and govern non-human entities such as APIs, containers, IoT devices, workloads and automated services.

While IAM has traditionally focused on human users, MIM extends identity governance to the rapidly growing number of machine-to-machine interactions across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This new approach ensures every digital entity—human or machine—is authenticated, authorized and continuously validated.

Organizations today are experiencing an exponential growth in non-human identities—such as devices, APIs and services—which now outnumber human identities by more than 40 to 1.

Without proper governance, these unmanaged credentials can quickly become hidden vulnerabilities, exposing the organization to potential security threats. Implementing MIM provides a comprehensive solution to address this challenge. It enhances security coverage by protecting certificates, keys and tokens used across digital systems, significantly reducing the risk of credential compromise or misuse.

MIM also drives operational efficiency through automation, streamlining the discovery, issuance, renewal and revocation of machine credentials to minimize manual errors and administrative burden. With centralized visibility into all machine identities, organizations can ensure compliance and audit readiness with frameworks such as Zero Trust, NIST and ISO 27001.

By preventing issues related to expired or mismanaged certificates, MIM helps reduce outages and downtime, ensuring smoother operations. Finally, MIM strengthens an organization’s Zero Trust posture by extending its principles to machine communications—enforcing least privilege, continuous validation, and the use of short-lived credentials to maintain a robust, secure environment.

MIM focuses on securing digital credentials used by non-human entities to authenticate and communicate securely.

The machine identity lifecycle encompasses several key stages designed to ensure complete visibility, control and security of all non-human credentials across an organization’s digital ecosystem.

• Discovery and inventory: Where all machine identities are identified across on-premises, cloud and edge environments.
• Classification and ownership: Involves mapping each credential to its specific purpose, designated owner and associated access level to establish accountability and context.
• Issuance and provisioning: Credentials are issued in alignment with least-privilege policies to ensure that each machine or service has only the access it truly requires.
• Rotation and renewal stage: Focuses on automating certificate and key updates, mitigating the risks associated with expired or outdated credentials.
• Revocation and de-provisioning: When services are decommissioned, this ensures that their associated credentials are promptly removed to prevent unauthorized access.
• Monitoring and governance: Provide continuous oversight through auditing and policy-driven automation, reinforcing compliance and maintaining the integrity of all machine identities throughout their lifecycle.

The key principles guiding effective machine identity management are rooted in least privilege, Zero Trust and automation.

• The principle of least privilege ensures that each machine identity is granted only the minimum access rights necessary to perform its intended function, thereby minimizing the potential attack surface.
• Zero Trust extends this security posture by continuously validating and monitoring all machine-to-machine interactions, ensuring that no entity is inherently trusted, regardless of its location or prior verification.
• Finally, automation is essential for achieving scalability and accuracy within modern, dynamic, cloud-native environments—enabling organizations to efficiently manage the growing number of machine identities while reducing manual effort and the risk of human error.

Implementing an effective Machine Identity Management (MIM) solution helps organizations overcome several critical challenges that often go unnoticed in traditional identity frameworks.

One major issue is the presence of orphaned or over-privileged machine identities, which can accumulate over time and pose significant security risks if not properly managed. MIM also addresses hidden “shadow” credentials—machine identities that exist outside formal Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems and therefore escape visibility and governance controls. Another common challenge is secrets sprawl, where hard-coded API keys or static tokens are scattered across applications and environments, increasing the risk of unauthorized access or credential leaks.

MIM closes gaps in lifecycle management for non-human entities, ensuring that every machine identity is properly discovered, tracked and governed from creation through decommissioning.

MIM plays a critical role across a wide range of real-world use cases, strengthening security and operational consistency in complex digital environments.

• In microservices authentication, MIM enables secure service-to-service communication within distributed applications by issuing and managing short-lived certificates or tokens, ensuring each interaction is both authenticated and authorized.
• In the realm of IoT device governance, manufacturers leverage MIM to authenticate connected devices, as well as to automate the rotation and revocation of their credentials throughout the device lifecycle—protecting against misuse or compromise.
• For organizations operating in multi-cloud environments, MIM provides a unified layer of policy enforcement and certificate management across platforms such as AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, helping maintain consistent security controls and visibility regardless of infrastructure diversity.

By securing and managing machine identities through a structured, automated, and Zero Trust–aligned approach, organizations can strengthen their overall cybersecurity posture, reduce operational risks, and ensure seamless trust across all digital interactions.

Learn more about securing machine identities and advancing your IAM strategy with IBM Security Verify — a unified platform that helps you enforce Zero Trust, automate identity governance, and protect both human and non-human access across your hybrid cloud environment.