Why Identity Security Solutions Matter More Than Ever in Cybersecurity
May 8, 2025
Let’s Start with a Simple Reality
In 2025, identity is the new perimeter.
In a world where networks are fluid, endpoints are ephemeral, and users — both human and machine — are everywhere, identity has become the central pillar of security strategy. Firewalls? Still useful, but not enough. Antivirus? A helpful layer, sure. But when attackers bypass perimeters, exploit trusted connections, or steal credentials, identity security solutions are what stand between your business and a breach.
Yet here’s the part most people miss: identity security isn’t just about managing users anymore. It’s about managing non-human identities — service accounts, API keys, certificates, and machine-to-machine credentials.
And that’s where the conversation gets interesting.
Identity Security: More Than Just IAM
When most organizations think about identity security, they think about IAM — Identity and Access Management.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
But here’s the challenge: these are human-centric solutions.
What about the automated script that deploys your infrastructure? What about the microservice calling your payment processor’s API? What about the IoT device streaming data from a factory floor?
All of these rely on machine identities — what Natoma calls non-human identities.
According to Gartner, by 2025, 75% of cloud security failures will result from inadequate management of identities, access, and privileges.
And that includes non-human identities.
Why Identity Security Solutions Matter More Than Ever
Let’s talk about why identity security solutions are no longer optional — they’re foundational.
1. The Attack Surface Has Shifted
Attackers don’t break in — they log in.
Credential theft, phishing, and lateral movement via compromised identities are the go-to methods for today’s threat actors.
Example: The 2022 Okta breach started with a compromised support engineer’s credentials, leading to downstream risks for dozens of customers.
2. Machine Identities are Growing Faster than Human Ones
In cloud-native environments, machine identities outnumber human users 40:1. Every API call, every service deployment, every CI/CD job — all of them require identity.
And yet, many of these identities:
Are static
Are over-permissioned
Go unmonitored
Are forgotten after use
3. Compliance Demands Are Increasing
Regulations like PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, and ISO 27001 now explicitly require identity governance — not just for employees, but for all entities accessing systems.
Auditors are asking:
Can you prove who accessed what, when?
Are your service accounts rotated regularly?
Do your API keys expire?
4. DevOps Needs Speed Without Sacrificing Security
In a CI/CD world, waiting days for a credential or certificate rotation is a blocker. DevOps teams need identity security solutions that integrate into pipelines — not slow them down.
Real-World Breach: SolarWinds (2020)
The infamous SolarWinds attack wasn’t just a software supply chain compromise — it was an identity compromise.
Once inside, attackers moved laterally using stolen credentials, including machine identities. They used these trusted identities to sign malware and evade detection for months.
If identity security had been tighter — particularly around non-human identities — the attack’s scope might have been limited.
The Missing Piece: Non-Human Identity Management
This is where Natoma’s view becomes crucial.
Most identity security solutions focus on human users. They miss non-human identities, which are just as critical — if not more so — in modern infrastructures.
What are Non-Human Identities?
Service Accounts: Used by applications to access systems.
API Keys: Authenticate machine-to-machine communications.
Certificates: Secure data in transit and establish trust.
Tokens: Grant scoped, temporary access in cloud environments.
These identities:
Don’t have MFA.
Often persist for months or years.
Are embedded in code, scripts, or containers.
And they need their own lifecycle:
Issuance: Who creates them, and how?
Rotation: Are they rotated regularly?
Monitoring: Who’s watching their use?
Revocation: What happens when they’re no longer needed?
How Natoma Elevates Identity Security Solutions
Natoma focuses exclusively on non-human identity management — bringing automation, visibility, and control to a space where manual processes dominate.
1. Discovery & Inventory
Natoma automatically finds all API keys, tokens, certificates, and service accounts across your cloud environments.
2. Policy-Based Access Controls
Apply granular policies to machine identities:
Scope by workload, environment, or function.
Enforce least privilege.
3. Automated Rotation
No more static credentials. Natoma rotates machine identities based on time, usage, or risk.
4. Real-Time Monitoring
Natoma tracks usage patterns. Anomalies? They’re flagged. Credentials behaving unusually? They’re revoked.
5. Compliance Reporting
Need to prove to auditors that your API keys are managed? Natoma provides full audit trails.
The Future of Identity Security: Unified, Automated, Inclusive
Identity security solutions must evolve.
They must:
Unify human and non-human identity management.
Automate the entire lifecycle of all credentials.
Integrate into DevOps workflows, not disrupt them.
Natoma’s non-human identity platform doesn’t replace IAM — it completes it.
In a world where every workload, API, and container needs trust, identity security solutions that ignore non-human identities are leaving the backdoor wide open.
Final Thoughts
Identity security is no longer about just logging users in.
It’s about managing every identity — human and non-human — with the same rigor, automation, and visibility.
Natoma helps organizations secure their most overlooked assets: the machine identities powering modern infrastructure.
Because in cybersecurity today, identity is everything. And if you’re not securing all of it, you’re not secure.