Best Practice SecureString in plain string credential property fields

[lukasziebold]

Thank you @AndrewHall for sharing some valuable points in your reply to above linked thread. I am adding it here to add context:

'Send SMTP Mail Message' Password - SecureString

It’s important to understand what SecureString can and can’t do. Yes, it isn’t a great story that different activities require different inputs (some require SecureString and others require a string) and this is something we will evaluate going forward at UiPath. However, even Microsoft in their official docs now discourages the use of SecureString as it does very little to improve security in most cases and the name implies security where very little is added. See the Secure string shouldn’t b…

I’m happy UiPath will evaluate this issue going forward. Would you mind taking a look at my follow-up questions?

Is the password variable accessible somewhere else, when I convert the SecureString to String?
What about the Workflow-Analyzer/Governance issues?

How can I use alternative authentication methods like certificates or auth tokens as recommended by Microsoft in activities like Send Exchange Mail?

Can I access the current users credentials without storing and retrieving them? For example with API calls, I can just use WebClient.UseDefaultCredentials.

Thanks in advance!