As enterprises mature their approaches to managing Non-Human Identities (NHIs), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has become a key way to automate high-volume workflows while tightening operational controls. From a SOC perspective, this also introduces a growing set of identities with access to sensitive systems and data. In many large environments, RPA identities now rival or exceed the number of human users; if their lifecycle is not managed with the same rigor, these accounts become a significant source of security debt. RPA directly affects Identity and Access Management (IAM) by introducing bot identities that must be governed, constrained to least privilege and fully auditable across all phases of their lifecycle.

Continue reading for a SOC-focused view of RPA, the IAM challenges it introduces and concrete practices security teams can apply to keep automated activity observable, controlled and defensible.

What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses software bots to execute repetitive, deterministic tasks that would otherwise be handled by human operators. Within IAM, RPA is often used to automate user lifecycle operations such as provisioning, deprovisioning and brokered access to credentials and systems. These RPA bots function as NHIs and must be governed like any other identity: they need authenticated access, appropriate authorization boundaries and monitoring of privileged activity. As RPA usage scales, IAM platforms and SOC workflows must manage human and non-human identities together in a single control plane. Key advantages of RPA include:

• Improved efficiency and speed: RPA offloads manual, repetitive work such as provisioning and deprovisioning, freeing IAM and operations teams to focus on higher-impact investigations, tuning and response.
• Better accuracy: RPA reduces manual handling errors and misconfigurations by executing predefined, repeatable workflows. Bots can consistently enforce credential-handling rules and help eliminate risky behaviors such as password reuse in automated processes.
• Enhanced security: RPA can harden IAM by ensuring deprovisioning and entitlement cleanup are triggered immediately when users depart or roles change. Automated workflows can also contribute to continuous monitoring by flagging or reacting to deviations from expected behavior in near real time, reducing dwell time for unauthorized access.
• Stronger compliance: RPA assists with regulatory and internal policy requirements by generating complete, structured logs of bot actions and by consistently applying access policies. When combined with zero-trust principles, RPA supports continuous verification and documentation of every identity — human or machine — that touches sensitive assets.

Challenges RPA introduces into IAM

As organizations expand RPA usage, several operational and security challenges emerge that can erode existing IAM and SOC effectiveness, including identity sprawl, an enlarged attack surface and friction when integrating with legacy tooling.

Managing bots

RPA bots are increasingly embedded in critical business and IT workflows, making their identity and access management a primary security concern. Unlike human users, bots run quietly in the background, but they still need strong authentication, well-defined authorization and continuous monitoring. Without disciplined identity governance, these non-interactive accounts can become opaque high-privilege actors inside the environment. A recurring pattern is insecure credential handling, where bots rely on hardcoded passwords or API keys inside scripts or configuration files that are difficult to rotate and easy to leak.

Increased attack surface

Each RPA bot represents a new NHI, and every NHI is another potential entry point or pivot opportunity for an attacker. If the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) is not rigorously enforced, RPA identities are often over-scoped with permissions far beyond what is required for their narrow tasks. Once compromised, these bots can be abused for lateral movement, data exfiltration or stealthy manipulation of automated workflows. Controlling privileged access for bots and enforcing Just-in-Time (JIT) elevation are critical for maintaining a defensible zero-trust posture.

Integration difficulties

Many legacy IAM platforms were designed around human-centric identity models and lack native patterns for modern RPA workflows, which complicates efforts to apply uniform access controls to both users and NHIs. Integration gaps can leave bot credentials unmanaged, weaken auditability and create uneven enforcement of policies across automated processes. Without tight alignment between RPA platforms, IAM and SOC tooling, teams lose visibility into automated actions and struggle to reconstruct accurate timelines during incident response.

Best practices for securing RPA within IAM

Locking down RPA within IAM is not just a matter of issuing credentials to bots; automated identities need the same rigor, controls and observability that we apply to human accounts. The following practices help keep RPA deployments aligned with zero-trust principles and make bot activity easier to monitor, triage and investigate.

1. Prioritize bot identities

Treating RPA bots as first-class identities is essential for maintaining a defensible IAM and SOC posture. Because these bots frequently touch core systems and data — often with elevated permissions — each one must be constrained to only the access required for its defined workflow. Every bot should have a dedicated identity with unique credentials that are never shared between other bots, services or users. This model allows security and operations teams to grant, adjust or revoke access in a targeted way, minimizes blast radius and makes it easier to attribute and review each bot’s activity in logs and investigations.

2. Use a secrets manager

RPA bots typically connect to critical systems and APIs and depend on credentials, keys or tokens to operate. Leaving these secrets in plaintext inside code or configuration files exposes them to theft and makes secure rotation operationally painful. A dedicated secrets management tool like Keeper® centrally encrypts and manages these credentials in a zero-knowledge vault. Bots can request secrets at runtime through controlled interfaces, minimizing exposure so credentials do not persist on disk or remain unnecessarily in memory.

3. Implement PAM

Bots executing repetitive administrative workflows frequently require elevated rights, which makes Privileged Access Management (PAM) a core control. PAM solutions should provide JIT elevation so bots receive privileged access only when a task demands it and only for a defined window. Combined with session monitoring and recording, PAM gives SOC teams the visibility to review automated privileged sessions, detect abnormal bot activity and reduce standing privileges that attackers can abuse for escalation.

4. Strengthen authentication with MFA

Human operators who configure, manage and approve actions for RPA bots must be protected with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). While interactive MFA is usually not feasible for the bots themselves, enforcing MFA on the administrators and engineers who control RPA workflows helps prevent takeover of bot configurations, credentials and underlying systems. In parallel, organizations should apply Zero-Trust Network Access (ZTNA) concepts to bot traffic by continuously validating bot identity, context and behavior throughout privileged sessions rather than only at initial authentication.

Secure the future of automation with IAM

Automation is reshaping enterprise operations, driven in large part by NHIs such as RPA bots that now perform a growing share of routine work. To keep this shift secure, IAM and SOC programs must evolve to manage and monitor both human and automated identities using consistent controls, telemetry and workflows. KeeperPAM® supports this approach by giving enterprises a unified way to manage credentials, enforce PoLP, observe privileged activity and control the full lifecycle of every identity — human or machine.

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