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10/06/2026 9:10 pm
TL;DR: IT process automation tools streamline repetitive IT work across workflow, orchestration, and infrastructure tasks, but the article’s list spans systems that can also widen identity and access blind spots when ownership, scope, and credentials are not governed, according to Zluri. For IAM teams, the issue is not automation itself but who or what receives persistent access, and under which review model.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: Automation Top 14 IT Process Automation Tools To Try In 2026
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams govern automation tools that use service accounts and API keys?
A: Treat every automation tool as an identity-bearing system.
Q: Why do IT process automation tools often increase lateral movement risk?
A: Because they usually require broad, cross-system permissions to function reliably.
Q: What breaks when automation credentials are never retired?
A: Orphaned accounts and stale API keys keep authenticating long after the original workflow is gone.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory every automation credential Map service accounts, API tokens, SSH keys, and cloud roles used by automation platforms to a named owner and business purpose.
- Apply least privilege to orchestration roles Reduce blanket permissions on automation platforms and scope each role to the smallest system set required for the workflow.
- Add automation offboarding to lifecycle controls Treat decommissioning a tool, pipeline, or integration as an access-revocation event.
What's in the full article
Zluri's full post covers the tool-by-tool feature detail this analysis intentionally leaves for the source:
- The full 14-tool roundup with product categories such as RPA, orchestration, workflow automation, and infrastructure automation.
- The specific feature sets attached to each tool, including cloud-native automation, configuration management, and no-code workflow builders.
- The source article's own positioning on where each tool fits in a modern IT operations stack.
- The original vendor framing around efficiency, cost reduction, and operational scaling.
👉 Read Zluri's roundup of the top 14 IT process automation tools for 2026 →
IT process automation tools: what IAM teams need to watch?
Explore further
10/06/2026 10:01 pm
Automation tooling is now part of the identity surface, not separate from it. The article treats process automation as an operations category, but every tool on the list depends on credentials, scopes, and trust relationships to function. That makes it an NHI governance problem first and a productivity problem second. The implication is that IAM teams must inventory automation systems as identity-bearing actors, not just as software.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- 96% of organisations store secrets outside of secrets managers in vulnerable locations including code, config files, and CI/CD tools.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How do teams decide whether an automation platform needs privileged access management?
A: Use PAM when the platform can change systems, deploy code, modify infrastructure, or reach sensitive data stores. If the tool can cause material impact when misused, it deserves the same scrutiny as any other privileged identity, including approval, session control, and periodic entitlement review.
👉 Read our full editorial: IT process automation tools create identity governance blind spots
