AI Agent Security: Securing Autonomous Access with BeyondTrust Privileged Account and Session Management (PASM)
AI Agent Security: Securing Autonomous Access with BeyondTrust Privileged Account and Session Management (PASM)
To adequately protect against AI agent risks and exploits, organizations need to address AI agent security. This blog explores how Privileged Account and Session Management (PASM) for AI agents can help safeguard credentials, monitor access, and minimize attack pathways.
How You Can Limit Privileged Access to Prevent AI Agent Risks and Exploits
AI agents are transforming enterprise companies across the world, but they also introduce unique security risks. One such risk is level of access. AI Agents are often configured with very broad or global access when they should be limited, just like human accounts. Traditional identity systems, built for humans, often fail to provide adequate AI agent security to protect these autonomous accounts, leaving organizations exposed to credential theft and unauthorized access.
To adequately protect against AI agent risks and exploits, organizations need to address AI agent security. This blog explores how PASM for AI agents can help safeguard credentials, monitor access, and minimize attack pathways.
The Growing Security Risks of AI Agents and Non-Human Identities
Non-human identities, like AI agents, service accounts, and API tokens, now outnumber human users by more than 80 to 1 in many organizations, rapidly increasing the AI agent security challenges IT teams must face. This surge has introduced hidden security gaps and escalated AI-driven attack risks. A recent survey by Help Net Security revealed that 39% of organizations reported AI agents accessing unauthorized systems, and 33% observed agents downloading or sharing sensitive data inappropriately. While non-human identities expand the attack surface, organizations must also address how generative AI facilitates insider threats. Employees using these tools can inadvertently or maliciously leak sensitive data, paralleling the risks seen in unmanaged AI agents
These numbers reflect real vulnerabilities that can lead to costly breaches, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage. Without proper security controls, AI agents can expose sensitive data or create privilege escalation pathways that allow threat actors to move laterally through your environment. However, the real challenge is the scale and speed of impact. Unlike human users, AI agents execute large-scale actions in seconds. A single compromised identity can cause widespread damage before security teams even have time to detect the breach. Mitigating this risk requires a framework for securing AI agent identities and the ability to secure autonomous agentic AI, ensuring these self-directed identities operate within strictly governed privilege boundaries.
Further, because AI agents are often integrated across cloud services, infrastructure, and applications, a compromise here can impact the entire environment, which is exactly what happened with Claude Cybercrime.
AI Agent Exploits: Lessons from Claude Cybercrime Attacks
In August 2025, Anthropic’s AI chatbot, Claude, was exploited by hackers to automate credential harvesting, network reconnaissance, and unauthorized system access. At least 17 organizations across government, healthcare, and emergency services were affected, with sensitive data stolen and ransom demands exceeding $500,000.
This recent event highlights the danger of AI agents having unmonitored or privileged access—and how quickly AI agent exploits can escalate if you don’t have the proper security controls in place.
Privileged account and session management (PASM), a pillar of privileged access management (PAM), addresses these risks by controlling the most sensitive accounts and monitoring how they’re used. PASM ensures credentials are stored securely, access is granted only when needed, and every privileged action is tracked, keeping AI agents operating safely within defined boundaries.
How PASM Secures AI Agents
BeyondTrust PASM for AI agents helps organizations stay ahead of AI-powered attacks by securing privileged access and monitoring critical activity. Key capabilities include:
Credential Protection for AI Agents: Safeguards human and machine accounts, SSH keys, and secrets to prevent unauthorized access and lateral movement.
Session Monitoring for AI Agents: Records and oversees privileged sessions in real time, helping detect suspicious activity quickly and mitigate AI agent risks.
Just-in-Time (JIT) Access for AI Agents: Grants privileges only when needed, enforcing least privilege and reducing attack surfaces. This is critical for preventing AI agent exploits.
Start Building a Secure Future with PASM for AI Agents
AI agents are powerful and still new, and if left unchecked, they can expose credentials and critical systems. With BeyondTrust PASM, you can guide them safely, protecting credentials, controlling access, and keeping an eye on every action. This way, organizations can harness the promise of AI automation without handing attackers the keys to the kingdom.
Ready to start securing your organization against AI agent risks and exploits? Click here for a detailed breakdown of how BeyondTrust PASM delivers the visibility and control you need to strengthen your AI agent security.
FAQs
AI agent security refers to the practices used to protect autonomous AI accounts from misuse, AI agent exploits, and unauthorized access. The primary goals are to prevent:
Malicious actors from taking control of an agent
AI agent exploits that lead to data theft
Agents from accessing data and systems beyond their permissions
PASM for AI agents protects credentials, enforces least privilege, and monitors sessions to reduce AI agent risks.
Privileged access management (PAM) is the overarching security strategy, while privileged account and session management (PASM) is a core component. PASM addresses the operational execution required for non-human identities: secure credential storage and real-time session monitoring to track the autonomous actions of agents.
AI agents often require elevated privileges for short, specific tasks. By granting privileges only for the duration of that task and revoking them after, JIT minimizes the attack surface. If an agent’s credentials are stolen, the window of time for a threat actor to initiate exploits or lateral movement is reduced to minutes.
About Our Authors
Gayatri Karthy
Gayatri is a Product Marketing Manager at BeyondTrust for Privileged Remote Access. Prior to joining BeyondTrust, she worked across marketing functions, including channel marketing, customer marketing, and product marketing across large multinational corporations and smaller, agile companies. Gayatri currently lives in SF and enjoys traveling, practicing yoga, and watching horror movies in her free time.
Timothy Jester
Timothy is a subject matter expert in credential security, hosts webinars and forums, and drives go-to-market messaging and strategy with a primary focus on Password Safe. Prior to joining BeyondTrust, he spent his career working for a range of organizations, from information security startups to global firms, and has experience in sales, consulting, and product marketing. In his personal time, Timothy enjoys running, dancing poorly at concerts, having his heart consistently broken by his favorite soccer team (Come on you Spurs!), and playing with his dog, Kodak.