Agentic threats prompt IBM enterprise defence rethink
IBM has launched two new cybersecurity offerings aimed at helping organisations defend against a rising class of AI-generated threats, as attackers begin using frontier AI models to automate and accelerate attacks.
The company announced a new cybersecurity assessment service and IBM Autonomous Security, a multi-agent service designed to match the speed of AI-driven attacks with automated defences.
IBM warns that frontier AI models are lowering the time, cost, and expertise required to mount sophisticated attacks. Traditional security programmes built on fragmented tools and manual processes are increasingly unable to keep pace.
The new assessment service, offered through IBM Consulting, is designed to help enterprises identify security gaps, policy weaknesses, and AI-specific exposures. It delivers prioritised remediation guidance, including interim safeguards where no immediate software fix exists.
IBM Autonomous Security coordinates AI agents across an organisation's full security stack. The service analyses software exposures and runtime environments, enforces security policies, detects anomalies, and contains threats with minimal human intervention, according to the company.
IBM says the service feeds insights directly into governance and risk systems to support continuous security and compliance posture management. This claim could not be independently confirmed.
"Frontier models are creating a new category of enterprise threat that is fast moving, systemic and increasingly autonomous," said Mark Hughes, Global Managing Partner of Cybersecurity Services, IBM Consulting. "Meeting that threat requires a systemic defense. AI powered offense demands AI powered defense. That's what IBM is delivering."
The announcement reflects growing industry concern over what researchers have termed 'agentic attacks' - threats where autonomous AI systems probe, exploit, and self-optimise across attack chains without human direction. IBM's own X-Force Threat Intelligence Index has previously flagged AI-assisted phishing and credential harvesting as accelerating trends.