CyberArk 2025 Machine Identity Security Report State of Security

Keypoints

• The typical structure of annual cybersecurity reports from major vendors includes sections on current trends, key statistics, emerging threats, technological challenges, and strategic recommendations, providing a comprehensive overview of the cybersecurity landscape.
• Major findings reveal that machine identities now outnumber human identities significantly, with growth projected up to 150% in the next year, driven by cloud-native tech, AI, and microservices.
• Key threats focus on vulnerabilities in API keys, SSL/TLS certificates, SSH keys, and other machine credentials; 77% of organizations see undiscovered machine identities as potential attack points.
• Alarmingly, 50% of organizations reported breaches related to compromised machine identities in the past year, with operational impacts including application delays, outages, and unauthorized access.
• Certificate-related outages are prevalent, with 72% experiencing at least one in the last year, and incident frequency rising sharply, now occurring monthly or weekly for many organizations.
• The rise of AI security considerations is significant, with 81% emphasizing the need to protect AI models, and 79% focusing on robust authentication to prevent model theft and manipulation.
• Challenges include managing the exponential increase in machine identities, fragmented responsibility across teams, and the slow adoption of automation—only 34% automate identity management processes.
• Future risks involve distrust in certificate authorities, shorter certificate lifespans (e.g., Apple’s plan for 47-day TLS certificates), and the looming threats of quantum computing, with 71% worried about CA trust and 58% about quantum’s impact on machine cryptography.
• Furthermore, security strategies are shifting towards distributed management of cloud-native identities, with 73% adopting workload-level protections amid increasing attack surface complexity.
• Despite widespread awareness, many organizations’ programs lack maturity, with gaps in visibility, automation, and crypto agility, making them vulnerable to sophisticated attacks and emerging challenges.