Machine Identities Outnumber Humans 82 to 1 and Legacy IAM Can't Keep Up

Machine identities outnumber humans 82 to 1 and legacy IAM can't keep up

Active Directory, LDAP, and early PAM were built for humans. AI agents and machines were the exception. Today, they outnumber people 82 to 1, and that human-first identity model is breaking down at machine speed.AI agents are the fastest-growing and least-governed class of these machine identities — and they don’t just authenticate, they act. ServiceNow spent roughly $11.6 billion on security acquisitions in 2025 alone — a signal that identity, …

Non-human Identities Push Identity Security Into Uncharted Territory - Cybernoz - Cybersecurity News

Enterprises are grappling with an identity attack surface that keeps expanding and slipping out of reach, according to Veza. Permissions growth outstrips oversight Permissions now grow faster than teams can track them. Enterprises often operate with hundreds of millions of active entitlements, each defining what an identity can do in a system. Veza measured more than 230 billion permissions across its dataset. This volume creates persistent blin…

Non-human identities push identity security into uncharted territory

Enterprises are grappling with an identity attack surface that keeps expanding and slipping out of reach, according to Veza. Permissions growth outstrips oversight Permissions now grow faster than teams can track them. Enterprises often operate with hundreds of millions of active entitlements, each defining what an identity can do in a system. Veza measured more than 230 billion permissions across its dataset. This volume creates persistent blin…