Securing Healthcare’s Invisible Workforce: The Machine Identity Crisis

CHICAGO, IL – December 02, 2025 – The global healthcare landscape is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by an explosion of connected medical devices, AI-powered diagnostic platforms, and automated clinical workflows. This digital revolution promises unprecedented efficiency and patient outcomes. However, it has also created a vast, invisible workforce of non-human identities—from APIs and service accounts to the software running on an infusion pump—that now represents one of the most significant and overlooked frontiers in cybersecurity.

This month, cybersecurity firm Keeper Security was named an Overall Leader in the KuppingerCole Leadership Compass report for Non-Human Identity Management, a recognition that casts a spotlight on this burgeoning challenge. While the report evaluates the broader enterprise market, its implications for the healthcare and life sciences sectors are particularly acute. As machine identities proliferate, far outnumbering human users in hospitals and labs, the attack surface for compromising sensitive patient data and critical medical systems has expanded exponentially.

A New Frontier for Healthcare Risk and Compliance

Non-human identities (NHIs) are the digital credentials used by applications, devices, scripts, and containers to authenticate and communicate with each other. In a modern hospital, this includes the API calls between an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system and a billing platform, the service account used by an AI diagnostic tool to access imaging data, and the embedded credentials in an Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) device. Industry estimates suggest these machine identities can outnumber human employees by a factor of 45 to 1 or more.

Unlike human users, these identities are often managed inconsistently, with credentials frequently hardcoded into software or left unmonitored in code repositories. This creates a fertile ground for cyberattacks. A single compromised API key could grant an attacker access to millions of patient records, violating HIPAA and other data protection regulations. A hacked service account for a network of IoMT devices could disrupt patient care or, in a worst-case scenario, allow for the malicious manipulation of medical equipment.

"Machine identities now outnumber human users by orders of magnitude, creating a new and urgent frontier in cybersecurity," said Darren Guccione, CEO and Co-founder of Keeper Security, in the company's announcement. This statement underscores a reality that healthcare CISOs are increasingly confronting: the traditional perimeter is gone, and identity is the new control plane for security, for both humans and machines.

The challenge is not just one of security but also of compliance. Frameworks like HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS mandate stringent controls over access to sensitive data. As auditors become more sophisticated, they are looking beyond user logins and focusing on how an organization governs the sprawling, automated interactions between its systems. Solutions that provide a complete lifecycle for NHIs—from discovery and provisioning to rotation and decommissioning—are becoming essential for demonstrating due diligence and avoiding costly penalties.

Zero Trust for the Machines: Redefining Digital Trust

The KuppingerCole report highlights Keeper’s zero-trust, zero-knowledge architecture as a key differentiator. This model is particularly relevant for healthcare, an industry built on trust but operating in a zero-trust digital environment. In a zero-knowledge system, the service provider—in this case, Keeper—has no ability to access or decrypt the secrets stored by its customers. All encryption and decryption happen at the client level, meaning the organization retains full control over its encryption keys and sensitive data. This design effectively removes the vendor from the chain of trust, a critical consideration when managing credentials that protect patient health information (PHI).

This architectural choice is reinforced by the use of FIPS 140-3 validated cryptography, a U.S. government standard that signals a high bar for security and is often a prerequisite for technology used in regulated sectors. For healthcare organizations, this level of validated security provides assurance that the tools used to manage infrastructure secrets meet rigorous, independently verified standards.

"Identity security is no longer limited to people," noted Craig Lurey, CTO and Co-founder of Keeper Security. "Non-human identities, AI agents and DevOps tools require access to data with least privilege controls and governance. Keeper's platform is designed to secure these interactions by default so organizations can rely on automation without increasing risk."

By eliminating hardcoded credentials from CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code repositories, platforms like Keeper Secrets Manager help secure the very development processes that build modern healthcare applications. This is a crucial step in mitigating supply chain risks, ensuring that vulnerabilities are not built into the software that powers everything from telehealth platforms to genomic sequencing analysis.

Market Validation and the Future of Secure Innovation

Keeper's recognition as one of only nine Overall Leaders in the KuppingerCole report validates a market that is rapidly moving from a niche concern to a mainstream strategic priority. The report evaluated more than two dozen vendors, signaling a dynamic and competitive landscape where innovators are racing to solve the NHI challenge. For healthcare investors and technology decision-makers, this analyst validation provides a critical benchmark for evaluating solutions capable of scaling in complex, regulated environments.

The implications extend globally, particularly to growth markets like India and China, where digital health adoption is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. As these regions build out their healthcare infrastructure, they have the opportunity to leapfrog legacy security models and embed robust NHI management from the ground up, ensuring that innovation does not come at the expense of security.

Ultimately, the security of a hospital's digital infrastructure is only as strong as its weakest link. For years, the focus has been on the human element—phishing attacks, stolen user passwords, and insider threats. While those risks remain, the center of gravity for cyber risk is shifting. The next wave of healthcare innovation, from AI-driven personalized medicine to the vast network of connected devices, will be built and operated by machines. Ensuring the integrity and security of this invisible workforce is no longer just an IT task; it is a fundamental prerequisite for patient safety, regulatory compliance, and maintaining public trust in the future of digital medicine.