AI Agents Can Act. So Can Attackers.

An AI agent that can act on your systems can also be used to attack them. The AvePoint 2026 State of AI report found that 88.4% of organizations had at least one agent-related security incident in the past year. Not a rare event. The default outcome.

The math behind that number is stark. The same report found each autonomous AI agent can increase an organization's network attack surface by over 450%. Every agent you deploy is a new door into your systems, and it holds real permissions to real data and real money.

This is not a reason to avoid agents. It is a reason to deploy them with the same discipline you would give any employee who can move money and touch customer records. You would not hand a new hire the master keys on day one. Do not hand them to an agent either.

Least privilege, always

Give every agent the narrowest access it needs to do its job, and nothing more. An agent that drafts marketing copy has no business reading the payroll database. Scope its permissions to the exact task, review that scope on a schedule, and cut off access the moment the job changes.

Then put a human in the loop for anything that moves money or exposes sensitive data. An agent can prepare the payment, the refund, the data export. A person approves it. This one rule stops the majority of expensive mistakes before they leave the building, and it costs you seconds.

Watch what they do

You cannot secure what you cannot see. Log every action your agents take and review those logs. Set alerts for the unusual: a spike in requests, access to systems the agent never touched before, actions outside working hours. Anomalies are your early warning, and they only help if someone is watching.

The upside of agents is real and worth having. So is the risk. Least privilege, human approval on high-stakes actions, and active monitoring are the three controls that let you keep one without inviting the other.