Implementing Agentic Security: A Step-by-Step Guide

Summary:

• Agentic AI security refers to autonomous systems that can detect potential threats and act based on those findings.
• Agentic AI helps increase the efficiency of the humans on the security team with practical applications in both cybersecurity and physical security.
• There are a number of steps to take to securely and effectively implement agentic security, ranging from ethical considerations to role-defining guardrails.
• While agentic security has unlimited potential, it’s important to set realistic expectations and regularly check in on the system.

Agentic AI has so much potential in the security realm. But is it right for you and your business? And even if it is—how do you go about integrating it into your security plans?

Read on for a comprehensive overview of the capabilities of agentic security and how to incorporate it into your real-world security setup.

Understanding Agentic AI Security

Agentic AI actively analyzes situations to find potential threats, decides what the correct responses should be, and then actually sets those responses in motion. 

Most forms of AI currently available don’t fully qualify as autonomous systems since they respond directly to prompts from people. Agentic AI, on the other hand, is able to take action based on its own findings—a game-changer when it comes to response times and repetitive tasks.

While its ability to act independently sets it apart from other forms of artificial intelligence, agentic AI is a combination of several of those AI technologies, including large language models, traditional AI, and machine learning. It thrives on large volumes of data because that’s how it learns. 

Effective and safe agentic security requires rigorous testing, training, and refinement before it’s ready to deploy, necessitating a careful creation process.

The Uses of AI in Security

Agentic security doesn’t replace the human element of operations but instead enhances it. Agentic AI can autonomously handle repetitive and time-sensitive tasks, freeing up the humans on the security team to focus on more complex and strategic operations.

Agentic AI has strong application possibilities in both cybersecurity and physical security. 

In cybersecurity, it can search for, detect, and respond to cyberattacks and threats, significantly bolstering the alert triage process and speeding response times. Agentic AI can evaluate environments and convey findings to give situational understanding to the rest of the cybersecurity team, enabling the human counterparts to take fast, informed action as needed. Agentic security is particularly good at recognizing patterns, enabling it to analyze user behavior and identify complex attacks.

On the physical security side of things, the current primary application for agentic security is through the analysis of security camera footage. Again, one of the biggest strengths in agentic AI lies in pattern recognition, but instead of computer behaviors, this time it is analyzing in-person behaviors to know what is normal and what is likely malicious. This advanced footage screening helps to filter out false alarms, and, when paired with technology like loudspeakers and floodlights on mobile security units, can even directly respond to threats with custom messages and trained spotlights.

In both the physical and cyber areas, agentic security can automate the investigation process, reduce false positives, and optimize efficiency—and this is just the beginning of its revolutionary security possibilities. 

Implementing Agentic Security

While the actual step-by-step integration process will depend on your unique company and situation, there are a number of universal pieces to the implementation puzzle to keep in mind as you consider adding agentic AI to your security lineup.

Define Your Goals and Needs

As with every aspect of security, it’s vital to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing in order to choose the most optimized solutions possible. This involves analyzing and defining your goals, needs, and wants. Consider the following questions:

• What are your primary security concerns?
• What elements of your current setup could be improved to increase efficiency? 
• Where could agentic security most effectively help you?
• How can agentic security help you address old threats as well as new ones?

When answering these questions, think about elements such as improved response times, problems with attention spans, more efficient use of human resources, reducing false alarms, and preventing trespassing. It’s also important to remember that bad actors have access to the advancements of AI as well, making it vital to keep pace with technology to combat the new and emerging threats that arise from it.

Integrate into Existing Security Measures

Unless your facility is still in development, you’ll need to consider how agentic security can fit into your existing security infrastructure. Most security plans require a layered approach consisting of a variety of technologies and procedures. Agentic AI would just be one piece of that puzzle, with the goal of increasing the strength of the big picture without losing any important components. 

As it’s unlikely that your company will be developing its own agentic security, considering the ease of integration becomes a vital part of deciding which companies and measures to use. Do the new agentic security measures require extensive and costly infrastructure? Or can they join your lineup without the headache?

Secure Your Agentic Implementation

While the point of adding agentic AI to your security operations is to bolster them, it’s important to go into it with the understanding that when unchecked, agentic AI comes with its own potential risks. 

To secure agentic implementation:

• Clearly define goals: This helps prevent the agentic AI from optimizing for undesired or unsafe outcomes. 
• Set guardrails in place to limit agent autonomy: This is especially vital in high-risk contexts; a clearly defined role helps prevent unauthorized access and actions so the agentic AI doesn’t end up where it shouldn’t be.
• Defend against manipulation: One of the main concerns is that the AI can be tricked into thinking it’s doing its job when it’s actually causing more harm (much like how humans fall for malware scams).
• Constantly monitor the system: This allows you to respond quickly if things get off track in any capacity. While agentic AI takes a big load off of human shoulders, it shouldn’t be treated as something to set and forget.

If you’re creating your own agentic security addition, it’s vital to take steps to mitigate these potential threats. Likewise, if you’re using agentic AI systems from security companies, it’s important to check that they have taken these risks into consideration and are actively guarding against them.

Keep Things Ethical

Equal in importance to ensuring a secure implementation is ensuring an ethical one. Since they only have the data to guide them, AI systems are susceptible to biases if their training data teaches them to be. In addition, since they have no free will or inherent moral compass to guide them, AI systems need to be held in careful check for their decisions.

To ensure ethical, understandable reasoning: 

• Make sure agent decisions are understandable and traceable: This involves setting up the system in such a way that it logs things and has clear reasoning behind actions. 
• Train based on actions instead of identities: Agentic security should focus on how people are behaving instead of what people look like. This will not only lead to better identification of suspicious activities, but also help avoid flagging people because of bias.
• Define clear ownership of actions and outcomes: Be clear about who signs off on agent roles and permissions as well as who is responsible for ensuring that the agentic AI remains on task and within guardrails.

Again, if you develop your own agentic security, these guidelines will be vital to follow. If you’re bringing in an agentic security system from another company, these are pieces of information to ask about. Ethical companies will have already taken care to ensure their systems are as objective and bias-free as possible.

Remember the Human Counterparts

Agentic AI does not replace humans, but it fills in the gaps to ensure a stronger, more efficient system. The people on your security team should be fully trained in how the agentic AI operates. 

While it’s tempting to assume that the agentic AI can operate fully independently and just be left to its own devices, it’s crucial to treat it more like another employee than just a stand-alone system. With that in mind, it helps to have a person assigned to regularly check in on the agentic AI and be in the loop in case further action is required with any security concerns.

Regularly Check in and Evaluate 

This can’t be stated often enough: It’s vital to regularly evaluate the agentic security’s performance to ensure it is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. Even the most sophisticated setups can fall apart if left to their own devices for enough time.

If you aren’t directly in charge of the agentic system, make sure the software provider has regular audits and feedback loops built in to verify that the agent functions as intended and continues to improve with time and data. 

Set Realistic Expectations

Artificial intelligence is moving security forward in leaps and bounds, but implementation and fine-tuning take time. While agentic security is an incredible tool, it may not be perfect at first and has limits, making it vital to have a hands-on approach in terms of regular review and refinement. With time and consistency, it should allow for more customization and precision.

Interested in adding agentic AI to your security lineup? Contact LVT® for more information about agentic AI for mobile security systems today.