What is machine identity management?

This episode of  Techsplainers introduces machine identity management, the practice of issuing, rotating and revoking the credentials that devices use to authenticate and communicate securely. It explains why machine identities have become a major cybersecurity priority as cloud adoption, SaaS, distributed systems, IoT devices and AI-driven automation continue to expand the number of nonhuman identities in enterprise environments. The episode clarifies the difference between machine identities and broader nonhuman identities, then walks through the most common machine identity risks, including visibility gaps, excessive permissions, credential theft, supply chain exposure and incorrect offboarding. It also explores the major credential types organizations manage, from TLS certificates and SSH keys to workload and IoT device certificates. Listeners are guided through the machine identity lifecycle, including discovery, issuance, rotation, renewal, revocation and deprovisioning, along with the technologies that support these processes, such as PKI, certificate lifecycle management, secrets management, PAM and HSMs. The episode also examines how machine identity management differs from traditional IAM and highlights its benefits for zero trust, compliance, uptime and security at scale. Find more information at https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/machine-identity-management Find more episodes https://www.ibm.biz/techsplainers-podcast Narrated by Alice Gomstyn