Effective Identity Governance for Non-Human Identities

Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) for Non-Human Identities

In today's tech-driven environment, non-human identities, like machine identities and workload identities, play a critical role in business operations. (What Are Non-human Identities? | Microsoft Security) These identities gotta be managed effectively to ensure security, compliance, and efficiency. Let’s dive into what Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) means for these non-human identities in a way that's easy to digest.

What is Identity Governance and Administration (IGA)?

IGA refers to the policies, processes, and technologies used to manage digital identities and their access rights. While traditionally focused on human users, IGA is increasingly relevant for non-human identities. (Non-human identity management: How to govern what you ...) Here, we will look at how IGA applies to:

• Machine Identities: These include servers, applications, and devices that interact within a network. Think of them as the digital workers that keep things running.
• Workload Identities: These are associated with workloads running in cloud environments, often requiring unique access controls. These are like the specialized tools your digital workers use.

Types of Non-Human Identities

Non-human identities can be classified into several categories, and these often overlap with the broader machine and workload identities:

• Application Identities: Used by applications to authenticate with other services. For example, when your CRM talks to your accounting software.
• Service Accounts: Special accounts used for automated tasks or services. Like a dedicated account for a background process that needs to update a database.
• api Keys: Used by applications to interact securely with other apis. These are like digital keys that unlock specific functionalities.

It’s important to note that "Application Identities" and "Service Accounts" can often be considered subsets or specific implementations of "Machine Identities" or "Workload Identities," depending on the context and how they are deployed. api Keys are a specific type of credential often associated with application or service accounts.

Importance of IGA for Non-Human Identities

Managing non-human identities is crucial for several reasons:

• Security: Prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data. Without proper IGA, a compromised service account could give attackers broad access to critical systems and data, like giving someone the master key to your entire building.
• Compliance: Meet regulatory requirements relevant to data access and identity management. Many regulations, like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS, have strict rules about who can access what data. For non-human identities, this means ensuring that automated processes or applications only access the data they absolutely need, and that this access is logged and auditable. For instance, a medical device application (a non-human identity) must only access patient data it's authorized to, and this adherence needs to be provable for HIPAA compliance.
• Operational Efficiency: Streamline identity management processes to reduce overhead. Manually managing access for hundreds or thousands of machine identities is a nightmare. Automating provisioning, deprovisioning, and access reviews frees up IT teams to focus on more strategic tasks, reduces errors, and ensures that access is granted and revoked promptly.

Steps to Implement IGA for Non-Human Identities

Implementing IGA for non-human identities involves several key steps:

1. Identify Non-Human Identities: This is about discovery. You need to know what you have. Catalog all machine and workload identities across your entire infrastructure – servers, cloud instances, containers, applications, scripts, and even IoT devices.
2. Assess Access Needs: Once you know what identities exist, you need to figure out what they should be doing. Determine what resources, data, and systems each identity requires access to, and importantly, what it doesn't need. This is where the principle of least privilege comes in.
3. Define Policies: Create clear policies that dictate how identities can interact with systems. For non-human identities, this often means defining:
   • Least Privilege: Granting only the minimum permissions necessary for a task.
   • Separation of Duties: Ensuring no single identity has excessive control.
   • Lifecycle Management: Policies for when identities are created, updated, and retired (e.g., when a server is decommissioned).
   • Credential Management: Rules around password rotation, secret storage, and access key usage.
4. Automate Provisioning and De-provisioning: Use tools to automate the creation, modification, and deletion of these identities and their access rights. When a new application is deployed, it should automatically get the correct identity and permissions. When it's retired, its identity and access should be automatically removed.
5. Monitor and Audit: Regularly review access logs, policy adherence, and identity lifecycles to ensure compliance and security. This means continuously monitoring who or what is accessing what, and flagging any suspicious activity or deviations from policy.

Comparison: Human vs. Non-Human Identities

Real-Life Example: Automating Access for Machine Identities

Imagine a cloud environment where multiple services need to communicate. Instead of manually granting access to each service, you can automate this process with IGA:

1. Create a Machine Identity for each service. Let's say we have "Service A" and "Service B."
2. Define Roles that specify what each service can access. For example, "Service A" needs to read data from "Database X." So, we create a role called DatabaseXReader and assign it to "Service A." This role grants read-only permissions specifically for "Database X." "Service B" might need to write to "Storage Bucket Y," so it gets a StorageBucketYWriter role.
3. Automate provisioning so that when a new service is deployed, it automatically gets the right identity and the appropriate roles assigned, without manual intervention from an IT administrator. When "Service A" is decommissioned, its identity and associated roles are automatically removed.

This approach not only enhances security but also saves time and reduces errors.

IGA Process Flow for Non-Human Identities

To visualize how IGA works for non-human identities, consider the following process flow:

This flowchart illustrates a more dynamic process. It shows how continuous monitoring can feed back into policy refinement or access reviews, highlighting the cyclical and adaptive nature of effective IGA for non-human identities.

Challenges and Best Practices for Non-Human Identity Management

Managing non-human identities isn't without its hurdles. Here are some common challenges and how to tackle them:

Challenges:

• Visibility: It's tough to manage what you can't see. Many organizations struggle with a lack of comprehensive inventory of all their machine and workload identities.
• Credential Sprawl: api Keys, passwords, certificates – they get scattered everywhere, making rotation and revocation a major headache.
• Long-Lived Identities: Service accounts often have very long-lived credentials, increasing the attack surface if compromised.
• Lifecycle Management: When a server or application is decommissioned, its associated identities and credentials often get forgotten, leaving dormant access points.
• Secrets Management: Securely storing and managing the credentials for these identities is critical but often complex.

Best Practices:

• Implement a Centralized Inventory: Use discovery tools to maintain a single, up-to-date record of all non-human identities.
• Automate Credential Rotation: Regularly rotate api keys, passwords, and certificates automatically. This significantly reduces the risk associated with compromised credentials.
• Enforce Least Privilege: Always grant the minimum necessary permissions. Regularly review and prune excessive access.
• Use Short-Lived Credentials: Where possible, use temporary credentials or tokens that expire automatically.
• Integrate with Secrets Management Tools: Use dedicated secrets management solutions to securely store, access, and manage credentials for non-human identities.
• Establish Clear Lifecycle Policies: Define processes for the creation, approval, and de-provisioning of non-human identities, ensuring they are removed when no longer needed.
• Regular Auditing and Monitoring: Continuously monitor access logs for suspicious activity and conduct regular audits to ensure compliance with policies.

By focusing on the unique aspects of non-human identities within IGA frameworks, organizations can better secure their digital environments and ensure compliance. With the right strategies in place, managing these identities becomes a seamless part of your organization's operations.