Agentic AI Redefines Cybersecurity Landscape with Dual-Use Potential

Global: Agentic AI Redefines Cybersecurity Landscape with Dual-Use Potential

A new survey posted on arXiv outlines how autonomous AI systems are reshaping both defensive and offensive cybersecurity operations, highlighting the technology’s capacity for continuous monitoring, autonomous response, and accelerated attack planning.

Enhanced Defensive Capabilities

The authors note that agentic AI can integrate memory, tool use, and iterative decision cycles to provide real‑time threat hunting, fraud detection, and incident response without human intervention, potentially scaling protection across large, heterogeneous networks.

Amplified Offensive Threats

Conversely, the same autonomous features enable adversaries to conduct rapid reconnaissance, coordinate multi‑vector exploits, and execute sophisticated social‑engineering campaigns, thereby increasing the speed and scope of attacks.

Governance Gaps for Autonomous Systems

The paper argues that existing AI governance frameworks were designed for single‑step, short‑lived models and therefore lack mechanisms to address the persistent, self‑directed behavior of agentic systems.

Emerging Threat Models and Security Frameworks

To bridge this gap, the authors survey new threat models and evaluation pipelines that incorporate continuous learning, tool‑access controls, and runtime verification tailored to autonomous agents.

Systemic Risks Identified

Key systemic risks highlighted include agent collusion, cascading failures across interconnected services, evasion of oversight mechanisms, and memory poisoning that can corrupt decision‑making processes.

Representative Use‑Case Implementations

Three case studies demonstrate how agentic AI can be embedded in security operations centers for automated alert triage, in red‑team simulations for adaptive penetration testing, and in fraud‑prevention platforms that dynamically update detection rules.

Future Outlook

The authors conclude that robust accountability, transparent auditing, and adaptive regulatory approaches will be essential to harness the benefits of agentic AI while mitigating its dual‑use risks.

This report is based on information from arXiv, licensed under Academic Preprint / Open Access. Based on the abstract of the research paper. Full text available via ArXiv.