Scalable NHI permission management
Secure every workload, microservice, AI agent, and API client in your architecture with policy-driven authorization
IAM is changing
Non-human identities are your hidden security risk
The fastest-growing attack surface
NHIs are fragmented, overprivileged, and invisible. Every workload becomes a backdoor for attackers.
Compliance starts
with machines
Compliance requires auditable and enforceable access controls for both humans and machines.
Overprivileged NHIs break Zero Trust
Zero Trust model requires every request to be checked in every service. Blindly trusting microservices breaks this paradigm.
AI multiplies
NHI risk
AI agents with no authorization controls expand the attack surface and increase the risk of data leaks.
Build for enterprise
NHI permission management with Cerbos
A centralized, scalable solution to implement consistent authorization policies for every identity across the entire architecture
1
Issue identity
Leverage an IdP to issue every workload a unique identity
2
Set policies
Set your user and service-level access policies
3
Request access
Cerbos evaluates each service request against policy and allows or denies access
4
Audit
Every request is captured along with the access decision and the policy that enforced it
Manage access for every identity, human or machine
Workforce
Partners
Customers
Microservices
Workloads
API clients
AI agents
AI workflows
MCP servers
Workload access management
Our approach to future-proof authorization
Build your Workload IAM strategy
Define, manage, and enforce access policies for all identity types:
Powerful ABAC, RBAC, and PBAC for your NHIs.
Full control over NHIs in cloud, on-prem, or hybrid environments.
Support Zero Trust with least privilege and continuous verification for every machine identity.
Seamless scalability and flexible run-time authorization.
Handle authorization at the API gateway, in the service mesh, and microservices
Prevent over-permissioned services with policy-based authorization, one policy engine for both user and service identities.
Enforce least privilege access control among services.
Secure service-to-service communication using NHIs tied to each microservice.
Implement a principal identity-based delegated authorization strategy.
Apply consistent authorization across cloud-native, containerized, and distributed environments.
Predictable performance at scale driven by the stateless architecture.
Safeguard AI agents, MCP servers, and RAG
AI agents are non-human identities that access systems autonomously, govern their action,s and control data access to prevent leakage, injection, and overreach.
Secure agentic workflows with centralized policies.
Dynamic, policy-driven prompt filtering to add additional layers of control.
Control what context an LLM is provided with permission-aware data filtering for vector stores.
Enhance RAG architectures using data restricted to the user's permissions.
Get full visibility into NHI actions
Centralized audit trails for all non-human identity access decisions across all your applications. Stay compliant with SOC2, ISO27001, HIPAA, PCI/DSS, and GDPR.
Capture every authorization check—across services, agents, and APIs—with structured logs that enable full traceability, compliance readiness, and forensic investigations.
Track which AI agent, API client, or workload accessed what, when, on behalf of whom, and which policy granted access, ensuring no identity operates unchecked.
Remove NHI compliance risks with full visibility into your workload’s actions
Seamless integration
Seamlessly fit into your tech stack
Machine identity providers
SDKs
Deployment models
Authorize non-human identities at scale
“We can make unlimited conditions, attributes, parameters to any granularity level without writing any code. It allows us to deliver truly personalized services quickly, securely & at scale.”
Karen Kim
CEO @Human Managed
Days-long coding task reduced to 5 minutes.
Dependencies and middleware replaced with a single binary.
Why enterprises choose Cerbos
Centralized policy management
Unify your authorization strategy for all identity types in a central hub.
Unify your authorization strategy for all identity types in a central hub.
Authorize anywhere
Run your authorization logic anywhere, in your infrastructure or at the edge.
Run your authorization logic anywhere, in your infrastructure or at the edge.
Grows with your architecture
Support evolving org structures, NHI growth, and complex access models.
Support evolving org structures, NHI growth, and complex access models.
Full auditability
Capture every request and decision in standardized audit logs.
Capture every request and decision in standardized audit logs.
Learn more about NHIs
eBook
Securing AI agents and non-human identities in enterprises
Learn how to secure your NHIs and AI agents. This ebook includes a practical NHI security roadmap (+35 actionable steps), common attack vectors, and a vendor evaluation checklist to guide your strategy.
Webinar
Fine-grained authorization for non-human identities
Understand NHI risks and secure your workloads, microservices, APIs, and AI agents with scalable authorization.
Article
Strategies for securing Non-Human Identities
A 6-step framework covering Zero Trust, least privilege, lifecycle governance, metrics, and standards like SPIFFE to protect AI agents, services, and workloads.
Article
The ROI of NHI security
Get insights on the risks associated with NHIs, the cost of not securing them, and how to approach a solution that is policy-based, and future-proof.
Guide
SPIFFE identity parsing added to Cerbos PDP
Cerbos PDP now supports native parsing and evaluation of SPIFFE identities in authorization policies. This unlocks precise access control for NHIs and containers that rely on SPIFFE-based workload identity.
Article
How to implement Cerbos for authorization of NHIs
This article shows how to define SPIFFE-based identities, write policies in YAML, deploy Cerbos as a sidecar or centralized PDP, and query it via API for real-time ALLOW/DENY decisions—all to simplify your access control for NHIs.
Success story
How Utility Warehouse secured millions of NHIs with Cerbos
Using Cerbos, Utility Warehouse secured millions of non-human identity access decisions across thousands of services, moved to a Zero Trust model, and gained full visibility into every request.
Article
Understanding and addressing the OWASP top 10 threats
We’ll break down the OWASP NHI risks, show how they appear in real systems through issues like hardcoded secrets, overly broad permissions, orphaned workloads, and outline practical ways to mitigate them.
Article
Securing cloud architectures in the age of NHIs and ephemeral services
Understand the rising complexity of managing NHIs, why runtime contextual access control matters more than ever, and Cerbos’ approach to securing NHIs.
Article
NHI security: How to manage non-human identities and AI agents
Learn strategies for inventory, least privilege, access controls, and authorization to secure NHIs and prevent AI risks in modern enterprises.
Webinar
Securing agentic AI in production
Put the right guardrail in place so agents can access and act on only what you explicitly authorize.
Identity at scale
Ready to secure your non-human identities?
Let our engineers show you how Cerbos protects non-human identities like APIs, bots, and service accounts, in minutes, not days.