Trust but verify: Secure enterprise AI agents
Why agentic AI demands secure development, identity governance, data protection, and real-time behavioral monitoring
Chapter 1
Agentic AI: Securing the enterprise in the age of AI
Chapter 2
Building AI agents: Finding and preempting vulnerabilities
Chapter 3
Operating and monitoring AI agents: Identity-first access
Chapter 4
Operating and monitoring AI agents: Secure your data
Chapter 5
Operating and monitoring AI agents: Stopping errant behavior
Chapter 6
Trustworthy autonomy enables confident innovation
Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering a new phase. Organizations are moving beyond tools that guide employees toward systems that plan, decide, and act independently. These systems, often called agentic AI, can complete multistep tasks, retrieve information, trigger workflows, and respond to changing conditions without waiting for human input.
The benefits are compelling: AI agents can resolve support tickets, process invoices, analyze contracts, monitor infrastructure, and optimize logistics. Early adopters report decreased response times, reduced operational overhead, and improved decision speed.
But autonomy also introduces a new challenge: trust.
AI agents interact across systems, applications, and data environments. They operate with permissions and decision logic that extend beyond traditional software boundaries. This expands the enterprise trust perimeter beyond what traditional governance models were designed to manage.
Security leaders recognize the shift. In research conducted by the Ponemon Institute for OpenText, 55% of the surveyed organizations reported that they believe that AI agents increase the risk of data theft and 66% said these systems make intrusion detection more difficult.1
This e-book explores how organizations can secure AI agents across their life cycle. More specifically, it examines the operational challenges introduced by autonomous systems and outlines practical approaches for governing identity, protecting data, monitoring behavior, preserving forensic visibility, and preventing vulnerabilities before deployment.
Organizations that build these safeguards now will be positioned to scale AI confidently while maintaining resilience and trust.
1 Ponemon Institute, Managing risks and optimizing the value of AI, GenAI, and Agentic AI, March 2026.
of organizations believe that AI agents increase the risk of data theft.
of organizations say AI agents complicate intrusion detection.