Rapid growth of machine identities - cause for concern

Over two thirds (67%) of UK organisations have experienced at least one certificate-related outage in the past year, marking a significant increase compared to previous years. Additionally, nearly half (43%) of security leaders reported security incidents or breaches due to compromised machine identities.

Machine identities—including certificates, keys, secrets and access tokens—are exploding amid the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, cloud native innovations and shorter machine identity lifespans. As a result, organisations are struggling to keep up and siloed approaches to securing machine identities creates its own risks. The report shows the substantial business impacts of not securing machine identities effectively, leaving organisations vulnerable to costly outages and breaches.

2025 State of Machine Identity Security Report Highlights

CyberArk surveyed more than 1,200 security leaders across multiple countries. Key findings from the research include:

• Frequency of outages surges dramatically – Over two thirds (67%) of UK respondents have suffered at least one certificate-related outage in the past year, with 52% experiencing outages monthly and 31% weekly.

• Machine identity-related compromises have substantial business impacts – Nearly half (43%) of UK security leaders reported security incidents or breaches linked to compromised machine identities in the last year, which led to delays in application launches (46%), outages impacting customer experience (47%) and unauthorised access to sensitive data or networks (41%).

• Machine identity growth continues at pace – Machine identities outnumber human identities by an overwhelming margin and continue to grow quickly. Seventy-six percent of security leaders anticipate the number of machine identities in their organisation to increase, by as much as 150% over the next year.

• AI looms large on the machine identity threat horizon – As AI systems become a growing target for cyberattacks, 81% of security leaders believe machine identity security will play a vital role in securing the future of AI. Seventy-four percent say securing AI models from manipulation and theft means putting greater emphasis on the need for machine identitiy authentication and authorisation.

• Machine identity security programs lack maturity – While 86% of security leaders report some form of machine identity security programme, many of these programmes lack maturity. UK respondents reveal the lack of a cohesive machine identity security strategy as their biggest concern (40%), followed by challenges adapting to shorter machine identity lifecycles (36%) and expired certificates leading to service disruptions and outages (33%).

• Siloed approach to securing machine identities creates risk – Where multiple tools to secure machine identities exist within organisations, inefficiencies, risk and management challenges are created. For example, responsibilities for preventing machine identity-related compromises were found to be split among security (55%), development (29%) and platform (13%) teams.

“Machine identities of all kinds will continue to skyrocket over the next year, bringing not only greater complexity but also increased risks,” said Kurt Sand, GM of Machine Identity Security at CyberArk. “Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting machine identities – from API keys to code signing certificates – to exploit vulnerabilities, compromise systems and disrupt critical infrastructure, leaving even the most advanced businesses dangerously exposed. 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.”