Glossary Terms: P

Prompt Injection

NHI security threats

Prompt injection is an attack in which malicious instructions are embedded in data or content that an AI agent processes, causing it to take unintended or unauthorized actions. For agentic AI systems that interact with external tools, APIs, and services, prompt injection represents a serious identity and access risk: the agent may be manipulated into acting outside its sanctioned permissions. Strong access controls at the workload level are essential to contain the damage.

Privilege Escalation

NHI security threats

Privilege escalation is an attack technique in which a compromised identity, credential, or workload is used to gain access rights beyond what was originally granted. In non-human identity environments, this often happens when service accounts or API keys are over-provisioned, allowing an attacker to move from a low-privilege workload to sensitive systems. Enforcing least privilege and short-lived credentials are the primary defenses against this threat.

Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE)

Security concepts

Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE) is a security extension to the OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow that prevents authorization code interception attacks.

Proxyless

IAM concepts

Proxyless architecture refers to workload identity and access management implementations that eliminate per-workload sidecar proxies, instead integrating security and traffic management capabilities through application libraries, kernel-level networking (eBPF), or shared infrastructure components.

Proxy

IAM concepts

A proxy in workload identity and access management is an intermediary component that intercepts, authenticates, and authorizes requests between workloads and resources, enabling dynamic credential injection, policy enforcement, and secure communication without requiring changes to application code

Posture Assessment

Security concepts

Posture assessment is the continuous evaluation of an organization’s security status based on its defensive capabilities, configurations, and readiness to respond to threats. In workload identity and access management, it serves as the foundational mechanism for dynamic, context-aware access decisions based on real-time security state.

Password Generator

IAM concepts

A tool provided by password managers to create strong, randomized passwords that are difficult to guess or crack. Password generators typically allow users to specify criteria such as length, character types, and special symbols to customize generated passwords.

Password Manager

IAM concepts

A software tool or service designed to securely store, manage, and retrieve passwords and other sensitive information, such as usernames, credit card numbers, and notes. Password managers often encrypt data using strong cryptographic algorithms to protect against unauthorized access.