Securing Agentic AI: Guardrails for Autonomous Systems

Security teams are facing new challenges as businesses adopt agentic artificial intelligence. These autonomous AI systems operate at machine speed across different layers, and traditional security controls aren't always equipped to handle them. Here's the thing: when something goes wrong with agentic AI, it can be hard to detect and even harder to stop. Diana Kelley, CISO of Noma Security, says many failures happen because organizations deploy this AI without proper guardrails, observability, and governance. What's interesting is that issues like excessive autonomy and unintended data exposure often aren't due to malicious acts. Instead, they occur because AI systems are operating in environments not designed for autonomous decision-making. Kelley notes that many companies are still in the proof-of-concept phase with agentic deployments. They want to ensure everything is right before moving to full production. The bottom line: securing these AI systems before they go into full production is crucial to prevent difficult-to-contain failures.