Delinea targets AI agent risks with real-time authorization

Delinea targets AI agent risks with real-time authorization As AI agents gain access to sensitive enterprise systems, AI agent security is becoming increasingly difficult to manage with traditional identity and privilege controls. The shift is driving demand for real-time authorization and stronger auditability without slowing productivity. Traditional identity and governance models were built around persistent human users and narrowly defined machine identities. AI agents create a new challenge because they can rapidly spawn temporary identities, access multiple systems and disappear once a task is complete, according to Art Gilliland (pictured), chief executive officer of Delinea Inc. “The typical gain visibility, scan for everything, set policy, and then enforce, that just is not going to work in AI,” Gilliland said. “In fact, I think you’re wasting your time looking for and trying to discover all the agents. And so you just need a different approach.” Gilliland spoke with Krista Case at Black Hat USA, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed strengthening AI agent security through real-time authorization and eliminating standing privileges without disrupting enterprise workflows. (* Disclosure below.) AI agent security needs new response Trying to identify every AI agent, create accounts for them and issue credentials would be impractical. Enterprises need a different approach that can secure agent activity without slowing operations. “The approach that we are taking, and we announced some technology last week about it and some customers that are using it, is to focus on the assets you care about,” Gilliland said. “What are these agents going to touch? Where is the sensitive data in your environment? Where are the sensitive things in your environment?” Organizations need to distinguish between a human accessing a system and an AI agent acting with that person’s credentials. They can then apply different permissions and evaluate each agent action in real time to determine whether it should be allowed. “That level of visibility, you can record it, you can watch it, so you have a way to demonstrate for compliance what the agent actually did,” Gilliland said. “It’s a very different approach.” Real-time authorization sits in line within the protocol, giving organizations a full audit trail of agent behavior. Unlike static access controls, it can surface patterns across sessions — making it useful not just for security, but for compliance and business operations as well. “You can decide. So this is just, in our opinion, a way better and more effective approach,” Gilliland said. “So that you can go fast and not break stuff.” Authorizing access at the front door is not enough, because the real risk comes from what the AI does next. It may scan through files in systems such as SharePoint, find additional credentials and use them to elevate its privileges, Gilliland noted. “That’s the stuff that humans don’t do because they’re not going to go through every file, machines don’t do because they’re very discreet, but AI will do whatever it takes to solve the problem you ask it to solve,” Gilliland said. “That is that sort of non-deterministic behavior with a machine sort of capability is why you need that sort of real-time authorization and not just front-door access.” Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Black Hat USA: (* Disclosure: Delinea Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. 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