Machine identity a key priority for organisations’ security strategies: CyberArk – Partner Content

An integrated strategy that combines privileged access management, zero trust principles and AI-powered automation is key to protecting workforce users and automated processes from these threats, said the vendor. It needs to accommodate the fact that the rise of AI agents, automation and orchestration within organisations has elevated machine identities as a security challenge, as these now vastly outnumber human identities in enterprise environments.

CyberArk offers an Identity Security Platform that incorporates governance, access controls, intelligent privilege controls and protection across all human and machine identities. Its platform broadens privileged access management from traditional IT users to cloud operations teams, developers, workforce and non-human identities to enable organisations to mount successful cyber defences.

The business has opened a new office in Melbourne to expand its commitment to Australia with in-country hosting and additional machine identity security capabilities. Combined with its secrets management solutions, the organisation is delivering a comprehensive end-to-end machine identity security platform provided through SaaS. In addition, CyberArk’s Venafi business has announced general availability of its SaaS machine identity security product portfolio in Australia. Hosted and delivered within the region, these products enable organisations to manage and secure machine identities across all environments while complying with the Australian Privacy Act. The local infrastructure also provides improved performance and availability. 

Securing AI a key feature

CyberArk’s machine identity security is particularly effective in securing AI–a critical differentiator as organisations infuse AI into their operations, processes and products. “Machine identity security ensures that every connection, every application and every line of code in your enterprise is trustworthy,” explained Kurt Sand, GM of Machine Identity Security at CyberArk. “It lets you rest easy knowing your AIs are who they say they are, doing what they’re supposed to do and accessing only what they’re supposed to access. Otherwise, AI systems could run rogue—or if infiltrated, run on someone else’s commands.

“Machine identity security can help us hit pause, or ‘pull the plug’, if something goes amiss,” he added.  ”It’s your kill switch, like the emergency pump shut-off at your local gas station.  

“For example, late last year, one of Google’s AI agents, Big Sleep—a piece of deeply experimental tech—found a zero-day vulnerability in SQLite, and the Big Sleep team alerted SQLite before threat actors could capitalise.  

“But what if a bad actor had found it first? Without machine identity security, specifically secure code signing, that story could have gone quite differently.  Instead, with machine identity security, you can authenticate your AI’s foundational data, inputs, outputs and actions, and stop any unauthorised models in their tracks.”

Machine identity security a growing challenge

“Without deployment of a comprehensive solution, securing machine identities is only going to become more challenging in future – driven by shifts such as CA distrust events, shrinking certificate lifespans and the rise of quantum computing,” Sand added. 

“Australian organisations are already facing challenges addressing the issue. According to a CyberArk survey, respondents’ biggest problem when managing and securing machine identity was identifying the business group or administrator who controlled access to the application or device using machine identity. This problem will be exacerbated as the use of AI explodes and business leaders rush to unlock the gains offered, while security teams are hamstrung by a lack of policy and automated toolsets and they work to retrospectively reduce risk,” said Sand.

“This research highlights the urgency for security leaders to establish a comprehensive, end-to-end machine identity security strategy that tackles the non-human identities that matter most to prevent potential attacks and outages—especially as AI agents continue to rise and the quantum attack timeline shortens,” he concluded.

For more information, download a copy of Cyberark’s State of Machine Identity Security Report.