Enterprise AI Unveiling: Exposing Artificial Intelligence Agents in Various Industries through Labubu Blind Boxes
In today's digital landscape, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has been on a steady rise across various sectors, from retail to healthcare, financial services, and public sector. This rapid integration of AI has brought about a new set of challenges, particularly concerning the security and management of non-human identities (NHIs).
According to recent reports, the use of AI in federal agencies has more than doubled in the last year, with approximately 50% of use cases developed in-house. Meanwhile, over 90% of retail and consumer packaged goods companies are using or evaluating AI today. In the financial services sector, AI adoption in federally regulated institutions in Canada is projected to reach 70% by 2026.
However, this widespread adoption of AI comes with hidden risks. NHIs, such as service accounts, bots, application credentials, or ML model access keys, often operate with elevated privileges and long-lived credentials without traditional protections like multi-factor authentication. Many remain invisible, unmonitored, or unmanaged, creating significant security blind spots that attackers exploit to gain unauthorized access, escalate privileges, and move laterally within networks.
One of the primary concerns regarding AI is the management of credentials and secrets. Stale or orphaned NHIs with unrotated secrets or excessively long credential expiration periods create windows of opportunity for cyberattacks. Examples include unused storage accounts, secrets exposed after employee offboarding, and vaults with unused access policies. These unmanaged credentials increase the risk of compromise, data leakage, or disruption of automated workflows.
The sheer volume of NHIs—outnumbering human identities sometimes by 40 to 80 times—complicates identity and access management (IAM). Traditional IAM approaches designed for human users are inadequate when applied to dynamic, machine-driven environments like Kubernetes clusters or AI agents. Automated scaling and ephemeral compute instances require advanced, automated, and centralized secrets management and policy enforcement.
Organizations face a fragmented landscape of tools targeting partial aspects of NHI management. This fragmentation leads to inconsistent governance, lack of lifecycle management, and gaps in auditability and compliance, which are crucial in regulated industries such as healthcare and financial services.
In sectors like healthcare and public services, mishandled NHIs can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data, jeopardizing privacy and regulatory compliance. In financial services and retail, exploited NHIs can facilitate fraud or disrupt supply chains and customer-facing systems. Manufacturing environments also risk sabotage or operational downtime by compromised automated controls or machine identities.
To address these challenges, an interactive webinar titled "Guess Who IAM" is being held on August 26. Inspired by the thrill of unboxing a rare Labubu and the deductive fun of the classic Guess Who board game, the webinar aims to help identify and secure invisible workforces.
Daniel Watts, SLED Industry Product Marketing Manager at Okta, and LaRel Rogers, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Okta's Federal business, are involved in creating cohesive messaging and content for the webinar. Their expertise in developing strategic messaging that showcases how Identity solutions can address the unique challenges facing state and local government, educational institutions, and federal businesses will undoubtedly make this webinar an invaluable resource for anyone looking to secure their AI-driven environments.
References:
- Mitigating the Risks of Non-Human Identities
- The Hidden Risks of Non-Human Identities
- Okta Blog: The Hidden Risks of Non-Human Identities
- The Hidden Risks of Non-Human Identities in the Public Sector
- Okta Blog: The Hidden Risks of Non-Human Identities in Financial Services
- In the digital realm, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has ignited a new wave of challenges, particularly in managing the security and identity of non-human identities (NHIs).
- The proliferation of AI across various industries, such as retail, healthcare, financial services, and public sector, has been swift, with an increase in AI usage leading to hidden risks.
- NHIs, including service accounts, bots, application credentials, ML model access keys, and more, often operate with elevated privileges, posing significant security blind spots that attackers leverage for unauthorized access.
- The management of NHIs is a primary concern, as stale or orphaned NHIs, unused storage accounts, and secrets exposed after employee offboarding can create windows of opportunity for cyberattacks.
- Advanced and automated secrets management and policy enforcement is crucial for handling the complexity of managing the sheer volume of NHIs, both in dynamic, machine-driven environments and traditional IAM approaches.
- Organizations face a fragmented landscape in addressing the challenges posed by NHIs, with inconsistent governance, lack of lifecycle management, and gaps in auditability and compliance being common issues, especially in regulated industries.
- To secure AI-driven environments, an interactive webinar titled "Guess Who IAM" is being held on August 26, offering strategies to identify and secure invisible workforces, featuring experts from OKTA, including Daniel Watts and LaRel Rogers.
