Executive summary
Service accounts, API keys, automation credentials, and machine identities have proliferated across enterprise environments — often outnumbering human users by 10:1 or more. Yet most organisations apply human-centric IAM processes to non-human identities, or worse, exempt them entirely.
The result: orphaned accounts with standing privileges, credentials that never rotate, and a massive attack surface hiding in plain sight. When breaches occur, compromised service accounts are frequently the pivot point.
What typically goes wrong
Creation without governance
What happens: Service accounts are created ad-hoc by developers, ops teams, or vendors. They're provisioned in tickets, spreadsheets, or directly in systems with no central registry.
Why it fails: There's no intake process requiring ownership, purpose documentation, or expiry. Speed trumps governance, and "temporary" accounts become permanent fixtures.
Result: Nobody knows how many service accounts exist, let alone what they do or who owns them.
Credentials that never rotate
What happens: Service account passwords, API keys, and secrets are set once and never changed. Rotation is seen as risky because "it might break something."
Why it fails: Fear of operational disruption outweighs security. There's no dependency mapping, so teams can't confidently rotate without risk assessment.
Result: Credentials persist for years, sometimes embedded in code, config files, or shared documentation.
Over-privileged by default
What happens: Service accounts are granted broad permissions "to make sure things work." Admin rights are common. Least privilege is ignored because scoping takes time.
Why it fails: Requests focus on functionality, not security. Approvers lack context to challenge. Nobody revisits permissions after initial setup.
Result: Compromised service accounts provide attackers with lateral movement and privilege escalation paths.
No lifecycle or offboarding
What happens: When projects end, applications are decommissioned, or vendors leave, nobody disables the associated service accounts. They linger indefinitely.
Why it fails: Service accounts aren't tied to HR events. There's no trigger for review or removal. Ownership has often changed hands or been forgotten entirely.
Result: Orphaned accounts accumulate — functional credentials attached to nothing, owned by no one, monitored by nobody.
The real root causes
Service account sprawl isn't a tooling gap — it's a governance gap. The underlying issues:
No ownership model
Service accounts exist in a grey zone between application teams, infrastructure, and security. Nobody is accountable end-to-end.
Human-centric IAM
IGA platforms were designed for people. Joiner-mover-leaver doesn't apply to machines. Service accounts fall through the cracks.
No central inventory
Without a single source of truth, discovery is manual and incomplete. You can't govern what you can't see.
Secrets sprawl
Credentials live in code repos, config files, CI/CD pipelines, wikis, and shared drives. There's no vault discipline.
Fear of breakage
Credential rotation and access reduction feel risky without dependency mapping. Teams default to "leave it alone."
Audit afterthought
Service accounts aren't included in access reviews. Certification campaigns focus on human access only.
Why this is a critical risk
Service accounts are high-value targets for attackers:
They don't trigger the same alerts. Unlike human accounts, service account activity often bypasses behavioural analytics. Lateral movement looks like normal automation.
They have standing privileges. Service accounts typically have persistent access — no MFA, no session limits, no conditional access policies.
They're connected to everything. Integration accounts touch databases, APIs, cloud services, and privileged systems. One compromised credential unlocks multiple attack paths.
Recent high-profile breaches — including supply chain attacks and ransomware incidents — have exploited service account weaknesses as initial access or pivot points.
What effective governance looks like
Organisations that manage non-human identities well treat them with the same rigour as privileged human access:
Mandatory ownership
Every service account has a named human owner accountable for its existence, permissions, and eventual decommissioning.
Purpose documentation
Each account has a recorded business justification, associated application/system, and expected lifespan.
Central inventory
A single source of truth for all non-human identities — discovered, classified, and continuously reconciled.
Credential hygiene
Secrets are vaulted, rotated automatically, and never embedded in code. Dependency mapping enables safe rotation.
Least privilege enforcement
Permissions are scoped to minimum necessary. Broad access requires exception approval with time limits.
Lifecycle triggers
Service accounts are tied to applications or projects with defined end dates. Decommissioning is automated or prompted.
How Solluna Caelum approaches this
We start with discovery and ownership — you can't govern what you can't see or assign. Our approach:
1. Discovery and inventory: Identify all service accounts, API keys, and machine identities across AD, cloud platforms, databases, and applications. Build a baseline.
2. Ownership assignment: Work with application and infrastructure teams to assign accountable owners. Flag orphans for remediation or decommissioning.
3. Classification and risk tiering: Categorise accounts by privilege level, connectivity, and business criticality. Focus governance effort where risk is highest.
4. Lifecycle integration: Connect service accounts to application lifecycles and CMDB records. Build triggers for review and removal.
5. Credential management: Implement or mature secrets vaulting, rotation policies, and dependency documentation.
Ready to tackle your non-human identity blind spot?
If service accounts are ungoverned, unowned, or unknown in your environment — let's talk. We'll help you build visibility and control without breaking production.
Related taxonomy: Non-Human Identity Management · Service Account Governance · Secrets Management · Machine Identity Lifecycle · Credential Rotation