AI as a turbo for threat actors
The threat situation is becoming increasingly serious. AI now acts as a technological accelerator for attackers, compressing the entire attack lifecycle. The time between the discovery of a vulnerability and its exploitation is shrinking rapidly. In 2025, a fourfold increase in exfiltration speed was recorded in the fastest attacks.
The trend towards “Living off the AI Land” (LOTAIL) is also particularly critical. Attackers do not use their own malware, but instead misuse compromised access data to query internal AI assistants for sensitive information. An AI assistant trained for financial reporting can involuntarily become an informant for external parties who want to access business secrets. If an agent is authorized to read data and send emails, transactions can be triggered using simple text-based commands (prompts) without having to inject a single line of malicious code into the system.
The strategic answer: platform approach instead of patchwork
In order to address the complexity, the security strategy should be fundamentally realigned. In the past, companies often purchased selective solutions to new challenges. However, this fragmented approach inevitably leads to security vulnerabilities. Isolated tools for language models, identities or cloud environments create blind spots that can be exploited by autonomous agents in milliseconds.
The technological answer to this is the platform approach. A natively integrated security architecture enables leadership to regain control of the entire AI ecosystem. The goal is complete visibility: every model, every application and every agent must be monitorable in real time. Risks can only be effectively assessed by knowing all active agents and the plugins they use.
In addition, AI agents must be treated like human identities in terms of security. Since they act autonomously, the application of Privileged Access Management (PAM) and Zero Trust principles is essential. Every action an agent takes must be continuously verified. It would be unthinkable to give a new assistant unrestricted access to all financial accounts on day one – yet AI agents often do this through excessive privileging. Only by bundling on a central security platform can the IT management regain the necessary transparency to monitor compliance with security requirements for all autonomous agents in real time and to log them seamlessly.
A blueprint for board-level governance
However, technology alone is only part of the solution. A governance structure is required that sees security as an integral part of the business strategy. Governance gaps are now considered the main reason for the failure of AI projects when they are started as isolated IT experiments without risk management and legal departments being involved.
