The CISO’s evolving role: Protecting and defending in the agentic era

Summary

Microsoft's Aarti Borkar argues that CISOs face two priorities as agents spread through the enterprise: enabling innovation with identity and data guardrails, and modernizing defense against AI-powered threats. The source says the number of active agents in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem grew 15-fold year over year, and 18-fold in large enterprises, according to the Work Trend Index Annual Report. It advises builders to give agents their own governed identities and to protect the data agents can reach.

Mitigation

Give agents their own governed identities rather than personal or shared credentials where supported and appropriate, so the responsible agent can be identified and shut off. Put data protections in place before connecting agents to information. Build observability so teams know which agents exist, who owns them, what they can reach, and what they are doing, and give each agent only the access it needs.

Topics

• AI agents

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