Ethical Hacking News
Ghost identities pose a significant threat to enterprise security, with compromised service accounts and forgotten API keys behind 68% of cloud breaches in 2024. Join The Hacker News for a live webinar that explores how to eliminate these unmanaged non-human identities before they compromise your data.
68% of cloud security breaches in 2024 were caused by compromised service accounts and forgotten API keys. There are approximately 40-50 automated credentials per employee, often left unmonitored after projects end or employees leave. A single compromised token can grant an attacker lateral movement across an entire environment with a dwell time of over 200 days. Traditional IAM systems were not designed to handle machine-based credentials and are often ineffective in addressing ghost identity issues. The webinar "Eliminate Ghost Identities" will provide a framework for right-sizing permissions, implement automated lifecycle policies, and offer an Identity Cleanup Checklist for immediate action.
In recent years, cloud security breaches have become increasingly common, and research has shown that compromised service accounts and forgotten API keys were behind 68% of these breaches in 2024. This alarming statistic highlights the growing threat of ghost identities, which refer to unmanaged non-human identities that are not being monitored or watched over by security teams.
For every employee in an organization, there are approximately 40 to 50 automated credentials such as service accounts, API tokens, AI agent connections, and OAuth grants. When projects end or employees leave, most of these credentials remain active and fully privileged, completely unmonitored. This creates a perfect storm for attackers who can simply pick up the keys left out by unsuspecting organizations.
The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) agents and automated workflows has accelerated this problem at an unprecedented pace. Many of these credentials carry admin-level access that they never needed, making them a ticking time bomb for security breaches. A single compromised token can grant an attacker lateral movement across an entire environment, with the average dwell time for these intrusions often exceeding 200 days.
Traditional identity and access management (IAM) systems were not designed to handle this problem, as they primarily focus on managing human identities rather than machine-based credentials. This means that security teams are often left scrambling to address these issues, using patchwork solutions that may not be effective in the long run.
To combat this growing threat, The Hacker News is hosting a live webinar titled "Eliminate Ghost Identities Before They Expose Your Enterprise Data." During the session, attendees will learn how to run a full discovery scan of every non-human identity in their environment, implement a framework for right-sizing permissions across service accounts and AI integrations, and set up an automated lifecycle policy that ensures dead credentials are revoked before attackers can find them.
Additionally, participants will receive a ready-to-use Identity Cleanup Checklist that they can use to take immediate action against ghost identities in their own organization. This playbook is not a product demo but rather a working solution that security teams can implement immediately.
The webinar aims to educate security professionals on the importance of managing non-human identities and provide practical steps for securing these credentials. By attending this session, organizations will be better equipped to defend themselves against ghost identity attacks and ensure their data remains safe from unauthorized access.
Related Information:
https://www.ethicalhackingnews.com/articles/The-Growing-Threat-of-Ghost-Identities-How-Unmanaged-Non-Human-Identities-are-Compromising-Enterprise-Security-ehn.shtml
https://thehackernews.com/2026/04/webinar-find-and-eliminate-orphaned-non.html
https://cyberwebspider.com/the-hacker-news/eliminate-orphaned-identities/
Published: Sat Apr 18 03:50:18 2026 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
