TL;DR: Hybrid work, least privilege, zero trust, endpoint security, and hyper-automation are redefining CIO and IT responsibilities in 2026, with shadow IT, remote access, cloud exposure, and low-code adoption all raising new governance pressure, according to Zluri. The identity lesson is clear: control models built for office-bound users and static systems no longer fit the way access is actually being used.
At a glance
What this is: This analysis argues that hybrid work, shadow IT, zero trust, endpoint security, automation, and low-code adoption are changing what CIOs must govern across identity and access.
Why it matters: It matters because IAM teams now have to govern access where it is actually consumed, especially across remote users, cloud services, and automated workflows that outgrow office-era controls.
Context
The core governance gap is that identity controls built for office-bound users no longer match how people, devices, and services now access corporate data. Hybrid work, SaaS sprawl, public WiFi, and unmanaged devices all weaken the assumption that access happens inside a predictable perimeter.
For IAM and security teams, the article is really about how identity policy, least privilege, and verification have to follow the access path rather than the workplace location. That makes shadow IT, endpoint risk, and cloud misconfiguration part of the same governance problem, not separate issues.
Key questions
Q: How should security teams govern Shadow IT without slowing users down?
A: Start with visibility, not prohibition. Classify shadow applications by business value and data exposure, then apply graded responses such as approve, warn, or block. Pair that with clear ownership so business teams can explain why a tool exists and IAM can prove who can access it. The goal is controlled adoption, not blanket prevention.
A: Zero trust matters more because cloud environments blur the old network boundary. Users are remote, workloads move across clouds, and both internal and external traffic must be trusted only after verification. When access decisions rely on identity, context, and per request checks, organisations can control entry and east west movement without assuming the perimeter will hold.
Q: What are the signs that automation has become an identity governance risk?
A: Look for automation platforms that create credentials, tokens, or delegated permissions without clear ownership, review, or retirement paths. If workflows can be deployed faster than access can be recertified, or if service accounts outlive the process they support, governance has already fallen behind the operational change rate.
Q: What should CIOs prioritise first when remote work expands the identity surface?
A: Prioritise the access paths that combine remote users, unmanaged devices, and sensitive cloud resources. Those paths concentrate the highest identity risk because they depend on trust decisions that are hardest to observe and revoke. Once those are under control, extend the same governance model to shadow IT, low-code, and automation platforms.
Technical breakdown
Why shadow IT breaks perimeter-based access control
Shadow IT appears when users adopt tools outside approved procurement and governance paths, often because remote work makes speed and convenience more important than central oversight. The technical issue is not just unapproved software, but untracked identity bindings, unmanaged data flows, and access decisions that bypass policy enforcement points. Once a user authenticates into an unsanctioned service, security teams lose visibility into entitlement scope, data residency, and offboarding. That makes the access model fragment across tools that IAM never formally enrolled.
Practical implication: map unsanctioned applications back into inventory, identity review, and access-offboarding processes before they become permanent shadow access paths.
How zero trust changes remote user authentication and authorisation
Zero Trust Architecture assumes no user or device is inherently trusted, even after prior authentication. In practice, that means authorisation must be re-evaluated continuously against user context, device posture, and resource sensitivity rather than granted once at the network edge. The article’s point is that remote work and public connectivity make castle-and-moat assumptions unreliable. For identity teams, zero trust is not just a network design shift. It is a change in how trust is issued, refreshed, and revoked across human sessions and connected services.
Practical implication: enforce contextual access decisions and shorten trust duration for remote sessions, especially where sensitive data is reachable from unmanaged networks.
Why hyper-automation and low-code expand the identity surface
Hyper-automation and low-code platforms speed up business operations, but they also create more non-human access paths, more configuration drift, and more places where privileges are embedded outside traditional IAM workflows. When business users and developers can connect systems quickly, access can be provisioned faster than governance catches up. That creates hidden service accounts, API credentials, and delegated permissions that may not appear in standard recertification cycles. The result is an identity surface that grows faster than the manual controls designed to contain it.
Practical implication: include automation platforms and low-code apps in entitlement reviews, secret handling, and lifecycle governance, not just user-facing systems.
NHI Mgmt Group analysis
Shadow IT is an identity governance problem before it is a software sprawl problem. Once users create unsanctioned access paths, the organisation loses the ability to review, certify, and offboard those entitlements on a governed schedule. The practical consequence is that inventory and lifecycle control become prerequisites for policy enforcement, not follow-on tasks.
Zero Trust Architecture becomes more relevant when trust boundaries are no longer physical. The article correctly links remote work, public connectivity, and device diversity to weaker assumptions about where authorisation should occur. That shifts identity control from static network membership to continuous evaluation of session and device context.
Hyper-automation widens the non-human identity problem even when the article frames it as operational efficiency. Every automated workflow, low-code integration, and AI-assisted process can introduce service credentials, tokens, or delegated permissions that sit outside human review cycles. The governance issue is not the automation itself but the speed at which it creates new access relationships.
Low-code adoption creates governance debt unless identity ownership is explicit. Business teams can spin up applications and process automations faster than security can classify, review, and retire their underlying access. That means ownership, offboarding, and entitlement visibility have to move into the same control plane as development velocity.
Identity control in 2026 is increasingly about location-independent accountability. CIOs are being forced to govern access across office, home, cloud, and automation layers at once. The organisations that treat identity as a static employee-only function will keep missing the actual boundary where risk now accumulates.
What this signals
Shadow IT is now a lifecycle issue as much as a visibility issue: if teams cannot inventory, assign, and retire access to unsanctioned tools, they cannot claim to govern the identity surface. The control failure is not discovery alone but the inability to connect discovery to offboarding and recertification.
Zero trust is becoming the practical language for remote identity governance because office assumptions no longer hold. The important shift is from trusted location to trusted context, with device posture and session risk becoming part of authorisation rather than an afterthought.
For practitioners
- Inventory shadow IT by identity owner Build a continuously updated inventory of unsanctioned apps, the users who adopted them, and the data or permissions each service can reach.
- Apply contextual access controls to remote sessions Require stronger authentication and conditional authorisation for remote and public-network access to sensitive resources, especially where device posture is unknown.
- Bring low-code and automation platforms into governance Treat workflow builders, automation tools, and citizen-development platforms as governed identity surfaces with assigned owners and entitlement review.
- Reduce standing access in cloud-connected services Review service accounts, API tokens, and delegated permissions that support cloud integrations, and remove access that no longer maps to an active business need.
Key takeaways
- Hybrid work, shadow IT, and cloud access are pushing identity governance beyond the office perimeter and into every endpoint and application touchpoint.
- The article’s main evidence is structural rather than numeric: remote users, unmanaged devices, public WiFi, automation, and low-code all expand the identity surface at the same time.
- CIO teams that want control need to connect discovery, access review, and lifecycle offboarding across human, machine, and automation-driven access paths.
Standards & Framework Alignment
This section maps relevant standards and security frameworks to the operational risks and controls described in this guidance.
OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 addresses the attack and risk surface, while NIST Zero Trust (SP 800-207), NIST CSF 2.0 and CIS Controls v8 set the governance and control requirements practitioners need to meet.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| NIST Zero Trust (SP 800-207) | Zero Trust Principles — Zero Trust Principles | The article centres on replacing perimeter trust with continuous verification for remote access. |
| Recommendation — Adopt continuous verification and contextual access decisions for remote sessions and sensitive resources. | ||
| NIST CSF 2.0 | PR.AA-05 — Access Permissions, Entitlements and Authorizations | The article focuses on how access permissions must track changing work patterns and shadow IT. |
| Recommendation — Review entitlements regularly so access scope matches actual business need across remote and cloud use. | ||
| CIS Controls v8 | CIS-5 — Account Management | The piece highlights unmanaged accounts, hidden access paths, and the need to govern them. |
| Recommendation — Maintain account inventory and offboarding discipline for shadow IT, automation, and remote access paths. | ||
| OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 | NHI-05 — Overprivileged NHI | Automation and low-code can create non-human access paths with more privilege than the task needs. |
| Recommendation — Reduce excess privilege on service accounts, tokens, and automated workflows supporting cloud integrations. | ||
Key terms
- Shadow IT: Shadow IT is the use of applications or services outside formal enterprise approval or visibility. In SaaS environments, it often includes department-purchased tools and unsanctioned integrations that create hidden identity, data, and access paths the security team cannot readily govern.
- Zero Trust: A security model that assumes no identity, human or non-human, should be trusted by default, even inside a network perimeter. Every access request must be verified, authorised, and continuously validated.
- Low-Code No-Code Platform: A low-code no-code platform lets people build software with visual tools instead of writing much code. It uses drag-and-drop components, templates, and configuration settings to create apps, workflows, or automations. In identity and security contexts, these platforms can speed delivery, but they also expand governance, access control, and data exposure risks.
- Hyper-Automation: Hyper-automation is the use of multiple automation technologies to execute repetitive work at scale. In identity and security operations, it can improve speed and consistency, but it also increases the need for governance so automated actions do not expand access or create unmanaged risk.
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Published by the NHIMG editorial team on June 11, 2026.
Updated on October 8, 2026.
NHI Mgmt Group, the independent authority on Non-Human Identity, IAM, and Agentic AI security. nhimg.org