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Managing AI Agents’ Credentials Securely: 1Password Introduces Extended Access Management

The advent of AI agents is poised to revolutionize the way we approach business processes, but with this shift, the challenge of securely managing credentials becomes increasingly complex. To address this challenge, 1Password has announced the introduction of agentic AI security capabilities to its Extended Access Management Platform (XAM). The introduction of AI agents is expected to have a profound impact on various industries, including software development. As ZDNET’s Joe McKendrick reported, OpenAI’s forthcoming Agentic Software Engineer is not just augmenting the current software engineers in your workforce but is an agentic software engineer that can take a pull request and build an app for you. The enterprise software development process involves a carefully choreographed workflow that often requires developers to authenticate with multiple solutions across an organization’s continuous integration/continuous development (CI/CD) infrastructure. Concerns about Security
The idea that agentic software engineers could start to take over the role of actual software engineers could be massively disruptive to the underlying security controls. Given the API-driven composability of many enterprise automation systems, it’s also highly likely that AI-agent-directed workflows will need to log in to multiple internal and external services to complete their tasks. This raises concerns about the security of the credentials used by these AI agents. “The enterprise software development process involves a carefully choreographed workflow that often requires developers to authenticate with multiple solutions across an organization’s CI/CD infrastructure,” as McKendrick noted. The need for secure credentials management in this context is critical, as the consequences of a breach could be severe. 1Password’s Solution
To address this challenge, 1Password has introduced three new agentic AI capabilities to its Extended Access Management Platform (XAM): partitioned vaults for dealing with AI agent-specific secrets, scoped APIs to enable the programmatic management of vault items into AI workflows, and a software development kit (SDK) to help software engineers with the development and automation of those workflows.

  • Partitioned vaults for AI agent-specific secrets
  • Scoped APIs for programmatic management of vault items into AI workflows
  • Software development kit (SDK) for automation of AI workflows

These capabilities enable 1Password to provide a scalable and secure solution for managing the credentials of AI agents. The partitioned vaults allow for the separation of sensitive information, while the scoped APIs provide a flexible way to manage the vault items into AI workflows. The software development kit (SDK) enables software engineers to develop and automate the workflows, making it easier to integrate the AI agents with the existing infrastructure.

“We’re standing at the precipice of a massive transformation,” said 1Password CEO David Faugno. “AI agents have the potential to be a massive accelerator of productivity and innovation. However, these AI agents will need to be able to execute human-like activities, such as logging in to systems, to perform their work. Unfortunately, legacy identity and access management solutions weren’t designed to govern or secure non-human, non-machine identities like AI agents.”

The disruptive promise of AI agents, as stated by 1Password co-CEO Jeff Shiner, is that they’ll “operate non-stop at machine speed, scaling workflows in ways we’ve never seen.” However, older security models designed for humans can only underserve agentic AI’s potential for speed and scale. When asked if the new functionality in 1Password’s XAM platform will take passkeys into account, a company spokesperson said: “We’re always working to improve our offerings, but we don’t comment on potential or unannounced products.”
Conclusion
In conclusion, the introduction of AI agents is expected to bring about significant changes in the way we approach business processes. To address the challenge of securely managing credentials, 1Password has introduced agentic AI security capabilities to its Extended Access Management Platform (XAM). These capabilities provide a scalable and secure solution for managing the credentials of AI agents, enabling them to operate securely and efficiently in various industries. With the introduction of AI agents, the need for secure credential management has never been more critical, and 1Password’s solution is well-positioned to meet this need.

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