Humans get a break as new insider threat emerges

We are no longer the weakest link in cybersecurity. Can you guess who or what it is?

For years, people have been blamed and shamed as the weakest link in cyberspace. No matter how strong your protections, one sloppy human mistake can cause the whole organization to crumble.

Well, maybe this is not the case anymore. Unfortunately, it’s not because we educated our workforce and everyone’s now proficient in cybersecurity. A new weak link has emerged — artificial intelligence (AI).

According to a new survey by a managed identity solutions provider, BeyondID, AI agents are an emerging insider threat.

There’s a lot of hype around AI agents, systems that perform actions autonomously, and more and more companies invest in various solutions. Unsurprisingly, an AI agent becomes an additional attack vector that criminals could exploit to breach internal systems.

“AI is no longer just a tool; it's a participant. AI agents log in, access sensitive systems, and make decisions, all while often escaping standard security scrutiny. As these non-human identities grow in number and capability, the risks multiply,” the company said.

The problem stems from the fact that AI agents are now essentially behaving like we do – logging in, accessing systems, and triggering various actions. However, most security teams treat AI agents like static infrastructure, meaning that AI roams free. Or, as professionals say, operates unchecked with elevated access.

Interestingly, many IT teams use AI to detect threats, but far fewer of them actually monitor AI systems themselves.

“This overconfidence spells big problems for IT professionals.”

The rise of agentic AI is alarming experts. Cybersecurity pundits believe that AI agents will soon perform sophisticated and difficult-to-detect attacks at scale.

“They will inevitably be used to scale up the number and speed of attacks that require a lot of human labor—including the most dangerous form of cyberattacks, big game ransomware,” a recent ThreatDown report from cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes warned.