To help organizations implement and secure identity access controls for AI agents, CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR), the global firm focused on identity security, is working with Accenture (NYSE: ACN) to integrate Accenture’s AI Refinery with its AI-powered Identity Security Platform.
This integration will provide clients with robust tools to “manage and secure AI agents based on Zero Trust principles, which assume all users and devices require continuous verification and authorization.”
As AI agents and agentic architectures become widely “adopted in production environments, their growth poses new and complex identity-centric cybersecurity challenges.”
AI agents will need to be authenticated “to critical systems, they will need strict access controls and they must be restricted only to performing their intended functions.”
At scale, enterprises may need to manage the “lifecycle, access and associated keys and certificates for millions of machine identities, requiring comprehensive identity-centric visibility, control and safeguards.”
Accenture AI Refinery is an AI foundation platform “that helps companies turn raw AI technology into useful business solutions.”
The AI Refinery platform is available on all public and private cloud platforms and will integrate “to accelerate AI across the Software as a Service and Cloud AI ecosystem.”
The CyberArk Identity Security Platform is built to “help secure the full spectrum of identities across every environment.”
With CyberArk’s unified platform, organizations can “secure the continued proliferation of every identity type—human, machine or AI.”
Matt Cohen, CEO at CyberArk said:
“By combining the comprehensive identity security capabilities of the CyberArk Platform with the powerful functionality of Accenture’s AI Refinery, we will be enabling our customers to realize the full potential of agentic AI to transform their businesses with the peace of mind that comes with knowing the agent identities are secure.”
Organizations must prepare for the integration of AI agents into their workforces and marketplaces, “ensuring they receive the same level of security considerations and controls as human employees.”
This preparation is critical considering that according to Accenture’s Technology Vision 2025 report, “77% of executives think AI agents will reinvent how their organizations build digital systems.”
Damon McDougald, global Cybersecurity Protection lead at Accenture said:
“AI agents operate autonomously, presenting unique identity security challenges. Ensuring secure authentication, credentialing and authorization is crucial for their safe operation both within and outside of organizations. Our collaboration with CyberArk by integrating Accenture’s AI Refinery into their platform is a significant step forward in helping our clients achieve secure identity access controls and more effective credential management.”
CyberArk and Accenture are collaborating to “help enterprises effectively manage and secure AI agents using Zero Trust principles.”
The collaboration will focus on combining CyberArk’s identity security capabilities with Accenture’s AI Refinery services, “helping organizations build the trust needed to run AI Agents in enterprise production environments.”
As AI agents become an integral part of day-to-day operations, this collaboration will enable:
- Visibility and control: Implementing tools to help enterprises have comprehensive oversight of AI agent activities, including quick identification of risks or anomalies.
- Least privilege and just-in-time access: Enforcing Zero Trust security principles to limit AI agent access only to what is necessary, reducing potential attack surfaces.
- Secure authentication: Establishing robust mechanisms to verify and authenticate AI agents to enterprise systems and other agents, providing seamless yet secure operations.
- Protection against manipulation: Safeguarding AI agents from internal and external threats that could expose sensitive data or disrupt operations.
As noted in the update, CyberArk is the global enabler of identity security, claiming to be “trusted by organizations around the world to secure human and machine identities in the modern enterprise.”
CyberArk’s AI-powered Identity Security Platform applies “intelligent privilege controls to every identity with continuous threat prevention, detection and response across the identity lifecycle.”
With CyberArk, organizations can reduce operational and security risks by enabling zero trust and least privilege “with complete visibility, empowering all users and identities, including workforce, IT, developers and machines, to securely access any resource, located anywhere, from everywhere.”