The vast majority of internet users are no longer humans.
The stark reality is that most online traffic is now between machines, or software.
Non-human identities, or machine identities, now outnumber human actors on the internet. In fact, some studies suggest there are as many as 40 or 50 machine identities for every real human.
We are now in a world where APIs, online devices and service calls now dominate internet traffic. And they dominate system access requests too. This raises some real issues for security teams, as many of the tools we rely on for identification and access management work less well with non-human identities. And some will not work at all.
And all this is only set to increase, with the rise of AI and AI agents. Agentic AI raises the prospect of one automated identity asking another for access, all without any human controls or intervention.
Unsurprisingly, security experts are worried about the rise of machine identities.
Their growth is leading to a lack of visibility, and a lack of control over non-human identities, is putting systems and networks at risk.
It is no longer a question of who has access to our systems and data, but what. And the consequences for cybersecurity are far reaching. It is changing the whole concept of identity.
Our guest is this week is Art Gilliland, CEO at Delinea. He has been following the rise of the machines, and discusses the what it means for cybersecurity with editor, Stephen Pritchard.
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
Be the first to comment