Tool · curated 28 Jul 2026
Ghost Credentials Expose Cloud Systems to Hidden Identity Risks
First reported darkreading.com
Coverage timeline
Single-source analysis — first reported, latest, and curated coincide.
Why it matters
NHI Hound gives defenders a way to hunt down dormant AI agents and non-human identities that can silently escalate privileges and move laterally through cloud systems, closing a blind spot in agentic and automated environments.
Security researcher Aleksandr Krasnov released NHI Hound, an open source tool to discover dormant non-human identities and map trust paths in cloud environments, after investigating an incident where an idle AI-enabled workflow agent suddenly began firing API calls and was found to have moved laterally and escalated privileges via 'ghost credentials.' The tool helps surface tokens, agents, and service accounts that live outside traditional trust boundaries in heavily automated, AI-based environments.