Protecting AI agents will be one of the most important tasks in the cybersecurity industry. And as organizations rapidly adopt AI agents to automate tasks and boost efficiency, these autonomous entities are establishing themselves as an new and powerful kind of identity and with such advanced privileges how to “represent” humans.
AI agents introduce new risksincluding agent hallucinations, misuse, and possible control by cybercriminals. These risks are intensified when agents require elevated privileges. CyberArk, the firm specializing in identity security, has announced the general availability of CyberArk Secure AI Agentsone of the first solutions to include privilege controls to protect AI agents.
CyberArk Secure AI Agents address the challenges by applying the appropriate level of privilege controls, helping to ensure that AI agents have only the necessary access, when they need it and nothing more. This approach reduces risk, helps prevent unauthorized access, and enables organizations to confidently scale their AI-based initiatives.
“As organizations adopt AI agents, we must understand how identity-centric risks evolve when agents require elevated privileges”explains Matt Cohen, CEO of CyberArk. “Without robust discovery, robust privilege controls, and comprehensive lifecycle management, organizations risk losing visibility and opening the door to catastrophic agent attacks. CyberArk uniquely protects the full spectrum of identities—human, machine, and AI agents—by applying the right level of privilege controls, enabling innovation while maintaining security and compliance.”.
And it seems necessary since a study by this company on CISOs predicts that the adoption of AI agents will reach 76% of companies in the next three years. However, less than 10% of organizations have adequate security and privilege controls in place.
Protect AI agents
AI agents act with autonomy, reasoning, and access to sensitive systems, often requiring privileged permissions to execute their functions. Without proper supervision, These privileges can be abused or violatedcausing serious business and regulatory consequences.
CyberArk’s Identity Security platform offers comprehensive privilege controls for the entire spectrum of identities: human, machine and AI. The extension to autonomous AI agents will apply the same principles of just-in-time access, least privilege and continuous session monitoring.
This unified, privilege-based approach ensures that each identity is governed, protected and monitored with the same rigor, enabling innovation without compromising security or compliance, offering capabilities such as:
- Comprehensive agent detection– Automatic detection of AI agents in SaaS, cloud, and development environments, with rich profiles including ownership, roles, and access rights.
- Secure agent access– Strong authentication and least privilege access, no sticky privileges, and auditing of agent activity.
- Real-time threat detection– Continuous monitoring of anomalies and unauthorized access, activating automated alerts and rapid response.
- Lifecycle management and regulatory compliance– Governance of the AI agent from creation to deactivation, supporting evolving regulatory requirements and audit readiness.
