Use case 2 · CISO / Head of IAM
Machine identities are not an inventory problem. They are a decision problem.
Every service account gets an owner, a score and an expiry. The “nobody knows what breaks” excuse is gone.
Most estates have more service accounts than people, and most of those have no named owner. ConteXengine discovers them from real evidence, scores them like any other identity, and converts the static key into a just-in-time role.
- Owner, reach and evidence
- Static key to JIT, in one run
- Decided on the same graph as people
Watch the walkthrough
The problem
They accumulated
A migration here, a vendor integration there, a script someone wrote on a Friday. Nobody created them on purpose; nobody answers for them now.
Admin reach, no expiry
Service accounts with standing Domain Admin rights and passwords that never expire stay live because nobody knows what breaks.
The finding ages
Posture tools find the key and open a ticket. The ticket ages. Nothing changes what the key can do tonight.
How it works
Discover from evidence
The account is read from the directory and the cloud: age, attached policies, last use, credentials and their expiry.
Score on the same contract
The same risk, trust and compliance bands that apply to a person apply to the key. Ownerless accounts read as untrusted.
Convert in one governed run
A playbook removes the standing membership, enforces expiry, rotates the password, registers the JIT group and re-imports the directory.
Decide every issuance
From then on, every grant to that account is decided on the graph with the same signals as a person. Membership as imported: none.
Why ConteXengine
Not a bolted-on module
One record type, one score, one engine for humans, machines and agents. Ownership, reach and findings feed the same decision.
Converted, not reported
The playbook changes what the key can do, and the re-import confirms it. The finding closes.
Evidence, not guesswork
Age, policies and last use come from the systems of record. Nobody has to guess what breaks.
Common questions
What counts as a machine identity?
Service accounts, cloud workload and managed identities, app registrations and service principals, API keys and certificates, and AI agents registered as identities.
We already have an NHI discovery tool. What changes?
Discovery is where it starts, not where it ends. ConteXengine scores the identity on the same contract as people, converts standing privilege to just-in-time, and decides every later issuance — on one graph, not in a separate module.
Does conversion break the workload?
The run is planned against the systems as they are when it reaches each step, with a window in which access may be granted. The workload gets its privilege inside that window and nowhere else.
How do you find the owner?
From evidence: who created it, which application depends on it, who last changed it. Where no owner can be established, the identity reads as untrusted until one is assigned.
Can an agent be an NHI?
Yes. AI agents are registered as identities with an owner, a credential and a reach, and are governed by the same engine.
Go deeper
Give every identity exactly the authority its risk earns. Take it back the instant that risk changes. Prove both.
Runs in your environment
Deployed inside your boundary, including isolated networks. Your data stays where it is.
No AI in the decision path
Models help us build and tune. Every live verdict is deterministic and replayable.
Built and run with you
A build partner connects your estate, then a 24×7 global command center runs it with you.
Patent pending
A new approach to runtime authorization for the agentic enterprise.