Machine credentials are digital secrets, such as API keys, access tokens, SSH keys, or certificates, that allow software-based entities (like applications, workloads, and agents) to authenticate and access other systems autonomously. They serve as the identity proof for machines communicating within and across networks.
How Machine Credentials Work
Every machine or workload that connects to a database, cloud service, or API must prove who it is before access is granted.
Machine credentials make this possible by storing and presenting verifiable information, much like a password for non-human actors.
Common forms include:
- API keys for simple authentication.
- Service account tokens in CI/CD or automation pipelines.
- X.509 certificates used for mutual TLS between services.
- Short-lived credentials issued dynamically by identity providers or workload identity platforms.
The credential is verified by the target system to establish trust. Once validated, access is granted based on associated roles or policies. However, without proper lifecycle management, these credentials can persist indefinitely, creating serious security risks.
Why Machine Credentials Matter
Machine credentials are the foundation of secure automation. They enable software, agents, and infrastructure to connect without human involvement, powering everything from deployment pipelines to AI agent toolchains.
For enterprises, they:
- Simplify authentication for distributed workloads.
- Enable integration across hybrid and multi-cloud systems.
- Support continuous delivery, infrastructure automation, and AI-driven operations.
But as organizations scale, the number of credentials multiplies exponentially. Without centralized visibility and rotation, these secrets become the weakest link in the security chain, often exploited in major breaches (e.g., source code leaks, CI/CD pipeline attacks, cloud takeover incidents).
Common Challenges
- Lack of Workload Identity: Machine credentials are often shared or static, not tied to the specific workload using them. This makes it impossible to verify which machine actually used a credential, undermining identity assurance and Zero Trust enforcement.
- Credential Leakage: Secrets embedded in source code, logs, or containers can be exposed through version control or misconfigured environments.
- Manual Rotation: Credentials are frequently rotated manually—or not at all—creating long-lived risks.
- Limited Observability: Organizations rarely have full visibility into where machine credentials are stored or used, making auditing difficult.
- Integration Complexity: Different systems (Vault, cloud IAMs, CI/CD tools) manage credentials differently, leading to fragmented policies and inconsistent enforcement.
How Aembit Helps
Aembit enables secretless access by brokering short-lived, policy-scoped credentials between workloads and resources.
With Aembit:
- Workloads authenticate through verifiable identities, not stored secrets.
- Access decisions are policy-driven and ephemeral, aligning with Zero Trust.
- Credential management is replaced with automated, attested trust flows.
- Security teams gain complete observability into which workload accessed which system and under what context.
This shifts authentication from static credential management to dynamic workload identity governance, closing one of the largest gaps in enterprise infrastructure security.
Related Reading
FAQ
You Have Questions?
We Have Answers.
Are machine credentials the same as secrets stored in a secrets manager?
Not exactly. A secrets manager stores machine credentials (API keys, tokens, certificates), but it does not provide identity assurance or enforce who is allowed to use them. A machine credential is the credential itself, whereas a secrets manager is only a storage and retrieval mechanism. True identity-based security requires tying each credential to the specific workload that uses it—not just locking it in a vault.
How many machine credentials does a typical enterprise have?
Modern enterprises often have tens of thousands to millions of machine credentials—far more than they have human users. Each microservice, API client, CI/CD workflow, automation script, serverless function, or AI agent may generate and cache multiple secrets across environments. The real problem isn’t just volume—it’s that most organizations don’t know where all these credentials live or which workloads actually use them.
Why do machine credentials cause so many breaches?
Machine credentials are attractive targets because they:
- often live in plaintext (repos, containers, CI/CD logs),
- rarely expire or rotate,
- grant broad, powerful access to cloud services,
- typically bypass MFA and human oversight,
- and are easy to reuse or exfiltrate silently.
Once an attacker steals one, they can access systems as the workload itself—making detection extremely difficult.
Are certificates or short-lived tokens automatically safer than API keys?
They are safer, but not inherently safe. Certificates and short-lived tokens reduce exposure time, but if they aren’t tied to a verified workload identity—or if the issuance process isn’t authenticated—attackers can still request valid credentials. The real security gain comes when the credential is ephemeral and identity-bound, meaning only a specific attested workload can obtain and use it.