"“identity dark matter” (the unseen, unmanaged elements of identity) now overshadows the visible elements 57% vs. 43%. And it couldn't have occurred at a worse time, with enterprises embracing Agent AI with both arms (and unfortunately, as Orchid co-founder Robert Wiseman explains, more than one eye closed)."
"AI agents are shortcut-seekers by design. When given a task, they are trained to find the most efficient way to complete it, with the speed of machines and the creativity of humans. Denied access to a necessary system? Use a hard-coded credential stored in plaintext within the application. Need information they aren't entitled to read? “Borrow” a credential with higher privilege. Constantly being challenged across many different systems? Grab a broadly accepted token. Truly, Agent AI's creativity is remarkable. It just cuts both ways."
"Just because an AI Agent can find a way to access an application, a system, a database, doesn't mean that they should do so. But where coding would restrict a traditional nonhuman actor and conscience should give a human pause, in most cases, AI Agents have no such constraints or compunctions."
"That's why well-managed identity and access management is a critical foundation to keeping Agent AI activity within authorized bounds. Look no further than the cloud outages reported at the start of the year to understand this importance. Of course, IAM shortcuts, gaps, and exceptions have built up over the years. Even decades. So it's not reasonable to expect everything to be cleaned up at once."
Identity dark matter, representing unseen and unmanaged identity elements, now outweighs visible identity elements. AI agents are designed to complete tasks efficiently, which can lead them to use hard-coded plaintext credentials, borrow higher-privilege credentials, or grab broadly accepted tokens when access is denied. Access to systems or data does not imply that access should occur, but AI agents lack human constraints and compunctions. Well-managed identity and access management is presented as a foundation for keeping agent activity within authorized bounds. Existing IAM shortcuts, gaps, and exceptions have accumulated over years, so ongoing exposure findings are treated as timely and important for North American and European enterprises.
#identity-and-access-management-iam #ai-agents #credential-security #privilege-escalation #identity-governance
Read at The Hacker News
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