Academy
What is an orphaned account?
Glossary · AI agent and machine identity security
Short answer
An orphaned account is an identity that still has access but no longer has an owner who answers for it.
Why it matters
Nobody reviews it, nobody removes it, and its access stays valid. Non-human identities become orphaned when the person or team that created them moves on.
What it looks like
A service account created by an engineer who left, still used by two services.
In nerl0
Issues and Questions can show identities with no owner, so you can assign one or remove the access. See Issues.