Security & fraud agents
Agents pointed at security itself: defensive triage and threat hunting, fraud detection that adapts as tactics shift, and offensive security that automates pen-testing and vulnerability discovery. All operate against an adversary, and offensive tooling is dual-use by definition. Read alongside the incident log; click a card for its full spec.
Defensive, fraud and offensive: a dual-use category
Security agents cluster on the work that scales badly with headcount: triage, enrichment, log correlation and first-pass investigation. These are high-volume, pattern-heavy tasks where an analyst's time is the binding constraint.
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The honest tension in the category is that reach cuts both ways. An agent able to investigate systems is an agent able to act on them, and offensive tooling is dual-use by definition. This catalogue is meant to be read next to the incident log, where the same capabilities appear with their documented attack class and defence.
What does an AI agent do in cyber security?
Mostly first-pass investigation: triaging alerts, gathering context from logs and systems, and correlating signals into something an analyst can act on. It targets the queue that scales badly with headcount, not the decisions at the end of it.
How does AI detect fraud?
By scoring transactions and behaviour against patterns learned from past activity rather than fixed rules. That catches novel schemes a rule written last year would wave through. It also produces false positives, so flagged cases usually go to a human before anything is blocked.
Can AI agents do penetration testing?
Yes, within limits. Agents can scan, probe and chain known techniques far faster than a person, which helps with coverage. They still miss the creative attack paths an experienced tester finds, and running them against systems you do not own is a criminal offence.
Can attackers use AI agents too?
Yes, and the same tooling works for both sides. The specific risk to defenders is prompt injection: hidden instructions inside content an agent reads that make it act against its operator. OWASP ranks it the top risk for LLM applications (OWASP).