Outside-In NHI Visibility
Outside-In Non-Human Identity (NHI) Visibility is a strategic cybersecurity approach that identifies and inventories automated entities—such as API keys, service accounts, and cloud secrets—from the perspective of an external observer or attacker. While traditional "inside-out" methods rely on internal agents or direct integration with identity providers, the outside-in model focuses on discovering what NHIs are exposed on the public-facing attack surface.
What are Non-Human Identities (NHIs)?
Non-human identities represent the automated "workforce" of a modern digital environment. These entities authenticate and perform tasks without direct human intervention, enabling machine-to-machine communication.
Common types of NHIs include:
API Keys and Tokens: Strings used by applications to connect to external services or databases.
Service Accounts: System-level accounts that run background processes or scheduled tasks.
Secrets and Certificates: Cryptographic credentials used to encrypt communications and establish trust between servers.
Bots and AI Agents: Automated scripts or autonomous agents that interact with systems to perform repetitive actions.
The Core of Outside-In NHI Visibility
An outside-in approach achieves visibility by scanning the external digital perimeter to see what an adversary can find. This methodology is critical because attackers often target NHIs to gain initial access, move laterally, or exfiltrate data.
Key functions of this visibility model include:
Unauthenticated Discovery: Identifying NHIs across the public internet, including subdomains and cloud environments, without needing internal credentials.
Exposure Detection: Finding hardcoded secrets or API keys that have been accidentally leaked in public code repositories, such as GitHub.
Orphaned Identity Identification: Spotting active credentials for projects or services that have been decommissioned but never properly revoked.
Supply Chain Mapping: Discovering third-party integrations and the specific NHIs that connect an organization's ecosystem to external vendors.
Why Outside-In Visibility is Critical for Modern Defense
Relying solely on internal visibility often leaves organizations blind to their actual exposure. Outside-in visibility provides several distinct advantages:
Attacker's Perspective: It reveals exactly what threat actors can see, allowing security teams to prioritize the same vulnerabilities that an attacker would find first.
Elimination of Blind Spots: Internal tools may miss "shadow" NHIs created by developers outside of sanctioned IT processes; an external scan finds them regardless of their origin.
Validation of Security Controls: It serves as a continuous audit, verifying whether internal policies (such as secret rotation or firewall rules) are effectively preventing exposure.
Reduced Resource Overhead: Because it does not require installing internal agents or complex connectors, it can be deployed quickly across a massive, decentralized digital footprint.
Common Questions About Outside-In NHI Visibility
How does this differ from traditional IAM?
Traditional Identity and Access Management (IAM) is "inside-out," focusing on managing known users and permissions within the system. Outside-in visibility is a discovery layer that finds the identities you don't know about or those that have leaked beyond your controlled perimeter.
Can outside-in visibility detect deep-level permissions?
While an external scan can identify that an NHI exists or is exposed, deep permission analysis usually requires an integrated "inside-out" view. The most effective security strategies combine both: use outside-in to find the "front door" exposure and inside-out to understand the level of access those credentials provide.
Is this a one-time scan or a continuous process?
Because digital environments and code repositories change constantly, outside-in visibility must be continuous. A secret leaked today might not have been there yesterday, making real-time monitoring essential for a proactive defense.
ThreatNG serves as an all-in-one solution for external attack surface management (EASM), digital risk protection (DRP), and security ratings. It functions as a comprehensive Outside-In Non-Human Identity (NHI) Visibility platform by identifying automated entities—such as API keys, service accounts, and cloud secrets—from an attacker's perspective. By transforming unmonitored external exposures into actionable intelligence, ThreatNG allows organizations to secure their machine-to-machine authentication layer before it is exploited.
External Discovery of NHIs
ThreatNG excels at purely external, unauthenticated discovery using no internal connectors. This is critical for uncovering "shadow" NHIs—automated accounts or keys created by developers that are not documented in central registries.
Shadow Asset Identification: ThreatNG scans the internet to find forgotten subdomains or unsanctioned cloud services that may be hosting active API endpoints or service accounts.
Role-Based Email Discovery: The platform identifies high-value email addresses such as admin@, devops@, or svc@. These accounts are often tied to unmonitored service principals and are prime targets for credential stuffing or impersonation.
External Assessment and Scoring
ThreatNG converts raw discovery findings into quantifiable risk scores (A-F), providing immediate context on the severity of NHI exposures.
NHI Exposure Security Rating: This specific rating quantifies the vulnerability posed by leaked machine identities. For example, discovering a high-privilege AWS Access Key ID in a public repository will instantly degrade this score to an 'F', signaling an imminent breach risk.
Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility: ThreatNG identifies "dangling DNS" records where a CNAME points to an unclaimed third-party service. An attacker could take over such a subdomain and use the associated NHIs to launch authenticated prompt injections or data exfiltration attacks.
Specialized Investigation Modules
ThreatNG uses targeted modules to provide deep forensic detail into how and where non-human identities are leaking.
Sensitive Code Exposure
This module is the primary tool for finding hardcoded NHI credentials.
Access Credentials: It scans public repositories like GitHub for API keys (e.g., Stripe, Google OAuth), access tokens, and cloud credentials (e.g., Azure service principals).
Security Credentials: It identifies leaked cryptographic keys, such as RSA or PGP private keys, which NHIs use for secure system-to-system communication.
Social Media and Online Sharing
Username Exposure: ThreatNG checks over 1,000 sites—from TikTok to specialized developer forums—to see where corporate aliases or usernames are active. This helps identify if service accounts are being discussed or impersonated on fringe forums.
Online Sharing Exposure: This module monitors platforms such as Pastebin and GitHub Gist for accidental snippets of code containing "secrets" used by automated scripts.
Intelligence Repositories (DarCache)
ThreatNG’s DarCache repositories provide the historical and global context needed to validate the severity of an NHI exposure.
DarCache Rupture: This repository stores compromised emails and credentials from third-party breaches. If a service account email found during discovery matches a record in Rupture, it indicates the NHI is likely already compromised.
DarCache Dark Web: This module monitors mentions of an organization’s NHI-related assets (e.g., specific API keys) being sold or discussed on underground marketplaces.
Continuous Monitoring and Reporting
ThreatNG provides persistent oversight to ensure that the "outside-in" view of NHIs remains accurate as the attack surface evolves.
Real-Time Alerting: If a developer accidentally pushes an API key to a public repository, continuous monitoring detects "configuration drift" immediately, allowing the key to be revoked before it can be used.
MITRE ATT&CK Mapping: ThreatNG automatically maps NHI findings to adversary techniques. For instance, a leaked service account key is mapped to "Initial Access" or "Lateral Movement," providing a strategic narrative for leadership.
Cooperation with Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG acts as an external intelligence feeder, activating and strengthening internal security controls through integration with other tools.
Secrets Management Platforms: When ThreatNG identifies a leaked credential externally, it can feed that alert to an internal Secrets Manager (like HashiCorp Vault). The manager then automatically triggers a rotation or revocation of the compromised key.
API Security Gateways: ThreatNG identifies exposed external API interfaces. This intelligence enables API Gateways to implement stricter rate limiting or input validation for specific "at-risk" endpoints.
SIEM and SOAR: External findings are routed to SIEM systems to correlate outside threats with suspicious internal activity. SOAR platforms can then use ThreatNG’s "Legal-Grade Attribution" to execute automated response playbooks without manual intervention.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is an "outside-in" view better for NHI security?
Internal tools can only see what they are connected to. Outside-in discovery finds the "unknown unknowns"—leaked keys in public places or unsanctioned cloud assets—that are visible to hackers but invisible to your internal identity providers.
What is "Legal-Grade Attribution"?
It is the process of using the Context Engine™ to fuse technical findings with business and legal context. This provides irrefutable proof that an exposed NHI belongs to your organization, justifying immediate remediation.
How does ThreatNG help with compliance?
ThreatNG automatically maps every discovered NHI exposure to regulatory frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS, ensuring that machine identity risks are reflected in your GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) dashboards.
