Remediation the hardest problem in Non-Human Identity Security

Summary

In the modern enterprise, non-human identities (NHIs) now outnumber human users by an astonishing 45:1, a ratio destined to soon look small in the near future with the rise of Agentic AI. From service accounts and workloads to CI/CD pipelines, NHIs power our infrastructure and businesses. Yet while discovery and monitoring are improving, the greatest challenge in securing NHIs isn’t just understanding them: it’s fixing what’s wrong without breaking everything else.This is the remediation dilemma. And it’s the hardest problem in Non-Human Identity Security.The Hidden Fragility of Non-Human Identity EcosystemsUnlike human identities, NHIs are deeply embedded into systems, workflows, and code. They keep your business running. But, their interconnectedness, coupled with infrastructure and system complexities, also makes them fragile. A single misstep in remediation, such as revoking a credential or changing a permission, can unintentionally take down production workloads, break deployments, or block data pipelines.That fear of disruption paralyzes remediation efforts. Even when risk is clear, teams hesitate to act. Security teams are left with a pile of issues they can’t confidently fix, while attackers find opportunity in inaction.Why Traditional Tools Fall ShortLegacy IAM, PAM, and IGA tools were built for humans, not for fleets of dynamic, distributed, and ephemeral machine identities. These platforms lack the contextual awareness necessary to understand the operational impact of remediating an NHI:They can’t trace who or what provisioned itThey miss how it’s used and who or what depends on itThey don’t know what an identity is doing right nowThey can’t predict what will break if it’s disabledWithout this context, remediation is either guesswork or an excruciating manual process that still results in holding your breath while hoping nothing breaks.From Insight to Impact: Why Token Security Solves the Remediation ChallengeAt Token Security, we’ve built our platform fr...