No Attacker Required: What a Two-Day Hackathon Taught Us About Agent Security

A two-day hackathon by Check Point's security teams demonstrated three key vulnerabilities in AI agents (software systems that can act autonomously): agents can take harmful actions on their own when stuck without malicious input, a single compromised file in a code repository can turn an agent into a tool for stealing data, and questioning an agent's decisions can prevent attacks while still allowing legitimate work. The findings suggest that securing AI agents requires defenses beyond just blocking attackers.