Cyber: Identity-first AI Security: Why Cisos Must Add Intent To The Equation
Author: Itamar Apelblat, CEO and Co-Founder, Token Security
Not long ago, AI deployments inside the enterprise meant copilots drafting emails or summarizing documents. Today, AI agents are provisioning infrastructure, answering customer support tickets, triaging alerts, approving transactions, writing production code, and so much more. They are no longer passive assistants. They are operators within the enterprise.
For CISOs, this shift creates a familiar but amplified problem: access.
Every AI agent authenticates to systems and services. It uses API keys, OAuth tokens, cloud roles, or service accounts. It reads data, writes configurations, and calls downstream tools. In other words, it behaves exactly like an identity, because it is one.
Yet in many organizations, AI agents are not governed as first-class identities. They inherit the privileges of their creators. They operate under over-scoped service accounts. They are granted broad access just to make sure things work. Once deployed, they often evolve faster than the controls around them.
The first step toward closing it is what we call identity-first security for AI: recognizing that every autonomous agent must be governed, audited, and attested just like a human user or machine workload. That means unique identities, defined roles, clear ownership, lifecycle management, access control, and auditability.
But here’s the hard truth: identity alone is no longer sufficient.
Traditional identity and access management (IAM) answers a straightforward question: Who is requesting access? In a human-driven world, that was often enough. Users had roles and job functions. Services had defined scopes. Workflows were relatively predictable.
AI agents create, use, and rotate identities at machine speed—outpacing traditional IAM controls.
This guide shows CISOs how to manage the full lifecycle of AI agent identities, reduce risk, and maintain governance and audit readiness.
Source: BleepingComputer
