Machine Identity
Machine identity: credentials for non-human principals
Machine identity is how services, workloads, and connected objects authenticate to each other without impersonating a human.
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Machine identity
Last reviewed 2026-08-21
Next
Give each workload its own identity and rotate or attest it.
Request a consultationWho this is for
Platform engineers, API owners, and industrial/IoT security teams.
Problem
Long-lived API keys and copied certificates become unaccountable shared secrets.
What to do next
Give each workload its own identity and rotate or attest it.
Knowledge topics
LibraryMachine Identity
Definition
Machine identity covers certificates, SPIFFE-style workload identities, IoT device credentials, and other non-human authenticators used in machine-to-machine (M2M) trust.
Machine Identity
Why it matters
If every microservice uses one cloud access key, a single leak is a fleet-wide incident. Distinct identities enable least privilege and revocation.
Machine Identity
How it works
Common patterns: mutual TLS, short-lived certificates from a CA or identity service, and cloud workload identity federation. IoT often uses provisioned keys in secure elements.
Machine Identity
Relationship to AI agents
An AI agent is not merely a machine identity. It may hold machine credentials and also act under human authorization. Keep those layers separate.
Machine Identity
Limitations
PKI complexity, bootstrapping, and secret storage remain failure modes. Machine identity does not inspect application logic for abuse.
Machine Identity
Where this meets Keyra
Keyra's public positioning includes trusted systems and carrier orchestration. Treat this page as conceptual architecture. Do not infer undocumented mTLS APIs.
Questions
What people ask first.
Plain answers. No product claims that have not been published elsewhere on Keyra.ie.
Is an API key a machine identity?
It is a credential. Without unique issuance, rotation, and attribution, it is a poor identity.
Is workload identity the same as device identity?
Workloads run on devices or in clouds. Device identity names hardware; workload identity names the running software principal.