As artificial intelligence rapidly evolves from curiosity to critical infrastructure, security leaders face a new generation of identity management challenges — ones where machines, not humans, are at the center. Keyfactor Inc. operates in the emerging machine identity management space, which spans everything from mobile devices and Kubernetes clusters to medical equipment and transportation systems.

Keyfactor’s Ted Shorter talks with theCUBE about AI-driven identity management.

In a world increasingly defined by autonomous agents and connected devices, Keyfactor is establishing new standards for securing machine identities across the enterprise technology stack.

“[Machine identity] involves machines, devices, workloads … it’s anything that needs an identity, both in the enterprise and in the IT space,” said Ted Shorter (pictured), chief technology officer of Keyfactor. “About 70% of our business is in large enterprises. That’s identities for web servers, workloads, Kubernetes clusters, mobile phones, that sort of thing. The 30% is more interesting, at least to me. It’s the medical devices, planes, trains, automobiles … people making things that need identities so that when they phone home or get a firmware update, they know that it’s legitimate.”

Shorter spoke with theCUBE’s Jackie McGuire at the Black Hat USA event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the evolving role of machine identity, the risks posed by agentic AI and how Keyfactor is helping enterprises rethink trust in a hyper-connected world. (* Disclosure below.)

Why machine identity is the new security frontier

The emergence of adversarial AI means that, alongside bolstering DevOps and app security on the defense side, attackers use AI to intricately hijack crucial enterprise identities. And in industries such as healthcare, where connected devices are proliferating, securely managing machine identities is becoming not just a security issue but a safety one, according to Shorter.

“All these things are connected now,” he said. “Like any other industry that’s making things, it’s all connected. If you think about it, if you’re updating firmware on a pacemaker when it’s attached to someone, you’d better make sure you’re protecting the private keys to that update.”

Model Context Protocol may become the new backbone of AI infrastructure, much like HTTP did for the early internet, according to Shorter. But like the early web, most systems today lack encryption and mature identity mechanisms. Keyfactor is already building toward that vision, launching new tools to embed secure identities into software systems, devices and AI agents.

“You can let the application do what it does well and then let AI do what it does well and separate those two things so they can innovate at their own pace,” he added. “I think the other part, to me, much like zero trust, it does come down to identity. You need to know what this thing is. You need to know what it’s supposed to do. It starts with identity that’s strong and well-established and durable.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Black Hat USA event:

(* Disclosure: Keyfactor Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Keyfactor nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE