Secretless and secure authentication of network resources

A non-transitory computer readable medium including instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations for secretless and secure communications with access-protected network resources, the operations comprising:

• identifying, at a secretless connection broker, a request from a client service to access an access-protected network resource, wherein the client service lacks information required for a connection with the access-protected network resource;
• automatically identifying, based on the request, an identity token uniquely associated with the client service for enabling autonomous authentication of the client service using the identity token;
• providing, from the secretless connection broker to an authentication credential provider, the identity token uniquely associated with the client service;
• receiving, from the authentication credential provider, based on the identity token and conditional on successful authentication of the client service, a connection credential for enabling the secretless connection broker to connect with the access-protected network resource on behalf of the client service as specified in the request, wherein the connection credential is not made accessible to the client service;
• establishing a secure connection, on behalf of the client service, with the access-protected network resource using the connection credential;
• and
• exchanging secure communications, on behalf of the client service, with the access-protected network resource through the secure connection.