Code Keepers: Mastering Non-Human Identity Management

Apr 12, 2024The Hacker NewsDevSecOps / Identity Management

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are 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 do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for 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 packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or retrieving information from databases. Communicating seamlessly through APIs, they ensure the seamless operation of services for us users. However, to utilize these APIs, microservices must authenticate themselves using non-human identities and secrets, akin to programmatic access keys.

Now, consider the ramifications if a malicious actor 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 brought to a standstill.

Without strong security measures, a system is wide open to these kinds of attacks. Companies need to lock things down tight to keep data safe and systems running smoothly.

The solution

What’s needed is a comprehensive suite of features to meet the needs of managing non-human identities.

Comprehensive secrets visibility

To manage non-human identities and secrets at scale you need a bird’s-eye view of all machine identities in your systems. From ownership details to permissions and risk levels, all this critical information needs to be centralized, empowering your security teams to understand the secrets landscape thoroughly. No more guessing games—just clear insights into non-human identities and their potential vulnerabilities.

Real-time monitoring & protection

To effectively oversee non-human identities, it’s crucial to employ real-time monitoring, enabling constant vigilance over your sensitive information. Any signs of dubious behavior should be promptly detected and flagged without delay. Whether it involves an unauthorized access attempt or an unforeseen alteration in permissions, ongoing scrutiny of secrets guarantees proactive defense against potential risks. Mere alerting isn’t sufficient; a comprehensive solution providing actionable steps for immediate resolution is imperative when suspicious activities arise.

Centralized governance

Centralized governance simplifies secrets management for non-human identities. By consolidating all security controls into one streamlined platform, it becomes easy for you to oversee access to non-human identities. From identification to prioritization and remediation, you need seamless collaboration between security and development teams, ensuring everyone is on the same page when it comes to protecting your digital assets.

Vulnerability detection & false positive elimination

Not all alerts warrant immediate alarm. Hence, vulnerability detection must extend beyond merely highlighting potential risks; it should differentiate between genuine threats and false alarms. By eliminating false positives and honing in on actual vulnerabilities, your security teams can efficiently address issues without being sidetracked by unnecessary distractions.

This is what it takes to manage secret security for non-human identities. It’s what we obsess about here at Entro.

Why Entro

With Entro’s non-human identity management solution, organizations can:

• Gain complete visibility of secrets that protect code, APIs, containers, and serverless functions scattered across various systems and environments.
• Identify and prioritize security risks, remediate vulnerabilities, and prevent unauthorized access to critical financial systems and data.
• Automate the remediation of identified security risks, saving time and resources for the 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 identities and secrets management solution.