Overview
- Cloud automation and AI have expanded the ranks of bots, service accounts, scripts and agents, which in many environments now outnumber human users.
- Many machine users sit outside traditional IAM, often holding broad standing access with static or hardcoded credentials and little oversight.
- Sparse logging and monitoring can let stolen machine credentials be abused for weeks or months without detection.
- Recommended controls include zero-trust enforcement, least-privilege policies, just-in-time access, ephemeral tokens and automated credential rotation.
- Vendors promote secrets-management and PAM platforms—cited example: KeeperPAM—to centralize credentials, monitor privileged sessions and rotate secrets across cloud infrastructure.