Bridge IAM gap: Integration of machine identities top security priority

Identity and Access Management (IAM) transformation provides access from a basic control function to an enterprise security. It has matured from simple usernames and passwords into sophisticated frameworks enabling organizations to verify users, enforce policies, and govern across an increasingly complex IT landscape. Solutions like Single Sign-On (SSO), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Identity Governance (IGA), and Privileged Access Management (PAM) secure human identities with greater confidence and control.

But, is that enough in today’s digital ecosystem? Machines, such as applications, containers, API, bots, and cloud workloads, interact with each other far more frequently than humans ever could.

IAM is no longer human-centered. Machine identities now outnumber human identities in most modern enterprises and are often overlooked. This is becoming one of the biggest blind spots in enterprise security.

Machine identities
Machine identities are a digital credential system used by non-human entities like applications, containers, IoT devices, and services to authenticate and communicate securely. These are:
•    SSL/TLS certificates
•    API keys
•    SSH keys
•    Service accounts
•    Cryptographic secrets.

Significance of machine identities
Machine identities increase with the rise of DevOps, microservices, multi-cloud environments, and IoT. Industry analysts say enterprises manage tens of thousands of certificates and secrets across distributed environments. Unlike human IAM, Machine Identity Management (MIM) is often manual, fragmented across teams, lacking visibility and automation, which is prone to security risk and operational disruption.

Machine identities were ignored where:
•    An expired certificate caused a major outage for a financial institution
•    Hardcoded credentials, remembered the Tesla incident where an AWS key in GitHub got misused for crypto mining
•    Credential sprawl, tracked service accounts, and keys became chaotic without a proper system
•    Compliance headaches, failed audits because expired or unmanaged certs are lying around.

Machine Identity Management (MIM) failure is no longer a theoretical risk. It will lead to real consequences. If not managed properly, every machine identity is a potential attack vector.

Areas where organizations fail
Most IAM investments today are centred around human identities. Organizations rely on platforms like Okta, Azure AD, SailPoint, CyberArk, and others. When it comes to machine identities, many organizations fail, and their status is often fragmented.

Their renewals and policies are manual, inconsistent, lack automation, and exhibit poor crypto hygiene. Organizations are missing scalability, automation implementation, and a policy-driven approach to managing machine identities across their lifecycle.

According to Gartner, by 2025, 50% of cloud security failures will be due to poor management of machine identities. Organizations bring a shift in their IAM ecosystem and treat machine identities as priorities by implementing these best practices:

• Invest in CLM: Investing in Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) tools automates issuance, renewal, and revocation.
• Discovery: Navigating all the certs, keys, and service accounts across the cloud and hybrid environment.
• Lifecycle automation: Renewing, alerting, and revoking, just like we do for user credentials. 
• Policy enforcement: Initiating certs with expiry policies, naming rules, key lengths, etc. 
• Integration: Enabling tools to plug into PAM, IGA, and cloud platforms.  
• Crypto hygiene: Helping HSMs store keys securely, support FIPS compliance, and avoid software-based vulnerabilities.

Organizations evolve from a human-only IAM mindset to a hybrid identity strategic approach, such as SSO, MFA, PAM, and IGA, to manage human access, while leveraging CLM, secrets management, and cryptographic governance.  They secure machine identities, ensuring unified visibility and consistent governance across both.
At Happiest Minds, we help organizations modernize their IAM strategies and include machine identities as a core component. Our service includes:

•    End-to-end Machine Identity Management (MIM) consulting and operations
•    Implement leading CLM platforms
•    Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and cryptography advisory
•    Secure HSM integration and key lifecycle governance
•    Custom DevSecOps integrations across cloud and hybrid environments.

Final thoughts
We can’t treat machine identities as an afterthought. They need the same level of attention as user identities, or they will create blind spots. Managing them effectively will eventually build trust in the long run. The IAM professionals believe organizations must shift from reactive firefighting to proactive identity governance for every user, every app, and every machine.

Investment in automation, lifecycle management, and cryptographic hygiene ensures you are not simply building secure systems but creating a resilient, future-ready infrastructure.

So, let’s not wait for the next outage or breach and future-proof your IAM strategy by prioritizing machine identity today, as digital trust doesn’t stop at humans.

-- Vishnu TJ, Associate Director, Security Services, Happiest Minds Technologies.