Insider Threat Detection for Non-Human Identities

The alert lights blink red. A service account just accessed production data at 2:14 a.m. No human was logged in.

Insider threats are no longer limited to disgruntled employees or careless contractors. Non-human identities—service accounts, API keys, machine-to-machine tokens—can act with the same level of access as top-level administrators. When compromised, they move unnoticed across systems. They don’t trigger the same alarms because, on paper, they’re “authorized.”

Detecting insider threats in non-human identities requires visibility, correlation, and control. First, you need a complete inventory of machine accounts, their privileges, and where they interact. Map every service account to its scope—database queries, deployments, network calls. Any untracked or stale account is an attack vector.

Second, baseline their normal behavior. Non-human identities should have predictable patterns. A backup script running at midnight should not suddenly start pulling customer data in the afternoon. Flag deviations immediately. Use real-time monitoring with event correlation to catch abnormal spikes, unusual API calls, or cross-environment access.

Third, enforce least privilege. Non-human identities often have inherited, overextended rights because they were created for quick fixes. Strip excess permissions. Rotate credentials frequently. Implement short-lived tokens instead of static keys to reduce exposure windows.

Insider threat detection for non-human identities is not a “set and forget” process. Attackers know how to blend into automated workflows. You need continuous verification—every request, every key, every machine action. The faster you identify an anomaly, the less damage it can cause.

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