Academy
What is a service principal?
Glossary · AI agent and machine identity security
Short answer
A service principal is the identity an application uses to access resources in Microsoft Entra ID (Azure).
Why it matters
It is the Azure form of a non-human identity. It holds credentials, such as a secret or certificate, that can expire or leak.
What it looks like
An app registration creates a service principal. A role assignment lets it read a storage account.
In nerl0
nerl0 connects to Azure read-only and includes such identities in the map. See Connectors.