Use cases

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NHI Permission Management

Scalable NHI permission management

Secure every workload, microservice, AI agent, and API client in your architecture with policy-driven authorization

Trusted by teams building with security in mind

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IAM is changing

Non-human identities are your hidden security risk

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The fastest-growing attack surface

NHIs are fragmented, overprivileged, and invisible. Every workload becomes a backdoor for attackers.

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Compliance starts
with machines

Compliance requires auditable and enforceable access controls for both humans and machines.

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Overprivileged NHIs break Zero Trust

Zero Trust model requires every request to be checked in every service. Blindly trusting microservices breaks this paradigm.

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AI multiplies
NHI risk

AI agents with no authorization controls expand the attack surface and increase the risk of data leaks.

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Build for enterprise

NHI permission management with Cerbos

A centralized, scalable solution to implement consistent authorization policies for every identity across the entire architecture

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Issue identity

Leverage an IdP to issue every workload a unique identity

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Set policies

Set your user and service-level access policies

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Request access

Cerbos evaluates each service request against policy and allows or denies access

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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

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Workload access management

Our approach to future-proof authorization

Build your Workload IAM strategy

Define, manage, and enforce access policies for all identity types:

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Powerful ABAC, RBAC, and PBAC for your NHIs.

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Full control over NHIs in cloud, on-prem, or hybrid environments.

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Support Zero Trust with least privilege and continuous verification for every machine identity.

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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.

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Enforce least privilege access control among services.

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Secure service-to-service communication using NHIs tied to each microservice.

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Implement a principal identity-based delegated authorization strategy.

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Apply consistent authorization across cloud-native, containerized, and distributed environments.

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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.

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Secure agentic workflows with centralized policies.

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Dynamic, policy-driven prompt filtering to add additional layers of control.

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Control what context an LLM is provided with permission-aware data filtering for vector stores.

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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.

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Capture every authorization check—across services, agents, and APIs—with structured logs that enable full traceability, compliance readiness, and forensic investigations.

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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.

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Remove NHI compliance risks with full visibility into your workload’s actions

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Seamless integration

Seamlessly fit into your tech stack

Machine identity providers

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SDKs

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Deployment models

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Authorize non-human identities at scale

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“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

Read more
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Days-long coding task reduced to 5 minutes.

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Dependencies and middleware replaced with a single binary.

Why enterprises choose Cerbos

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Centralized policy management

Unify your authorization strategy for all identity types in a central hub.

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Authorize anywhere

Run your authorization logic anywhere, in your infrastructure or at the edge.

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Grows with your architecture

Support evolving org structures, NHI growth, and complex access models.

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Full auditability

Capture every request and decision in standardized audit logs.

Learn more about NHIs

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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.