- Non-human identities outnumber humans 82-to-1, new report claims
- Security teams focus on identity security
- Attack vectors remain unchanged, and that’s a good thing
New research from Rubrik Zero Labs has claimed that AI agents in the workplace are creating a wave of ‘non-human identities’ that now outnumber human users 82-to-1.
This growth comes as 90% of global executives cite identity attacks as their top cybersecurity concern – as non-human identities expand the attack surface faster than security teams can keep up.
“Managing identities in the AI era has become a complex endeavor, especially with the maze of NHIs,” highlighted the company’s Chief Transformation Officer Kavitha Mariappan.
AI agents, or non-human identities, create new weak points
However, the risks are not going unnoticed, with 89% of organizations planning to hire staff dedicated specifically to identity security in the next year. Additionally, 87% plan to switch their IAM provider, with 58% citing security concerns as their main reason for switching.
However, security experts worry that it may be too little too late, as 89% have already incorporated AI agents into their identity infrastructure and another 10% plan to do so.
Three in five (58%) security leaders now expect at least half of next year’s cyber attacks to be powered by agent AI, and only 28% believe they will fully recover from a cyber incident within 12 hours (down 15 percentage points in one year).
More alarmingly, 89% of ransomware victims agreed to pay the ransom to recover from or stop the attack.
Despite an evolving landscape, common attack vectors are not changing. Four out of five (79%) CrowdStrike detections did not involve malware – just the attacker logging in. Social engineering remains a key vector, with 86% of basic web app attacks today relying on stolen credentials, and non-human identities can be just as susceptible to deception.
Social engineering (24%), legitimate credential compromise (21%), forged authentication tokens (20%), and MFA bypass (17%) are among the most popular, but that’s a good thing.
With this in mind, all security managers need to do is adapt how they protect new tools against the same old threats.
So despite the rise in non-human identities, security teams aren’t actually facing new challenges, just more systems to lock down.
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