Why visibility is the new frontline of cybersecurity Adam Turner In an era of machine-speed cyberattacks, Agentic AI is the key to neutralising cybersecurity threats which can escalate in just minutes. Industry reports show the average eCrime breakout time – the period between initial access and lateral movement onto another system – has dropped to only 29 minutes, a 65 per cent increase in speed from 2024, with the fastest recorded breakout taking only 27 seconds. In response, traditional human-only reactive security is evolving into a model where AI agents act as background partners to help quickly identify and neutralise threats. A security partner Unlike simple chatbots, modern AI agents are capable of independently executing actions and orchestrating workflows. In a security context, this allows them to correlate information and respond to incidents much faster than humans can react. Advertisement As such, Security Operations Centres (SOCs) are increasingly relying on AI agents to manage the sheer volume of digital threats. These tools allow teams to detect and resolve security incidents quickly, significantly cutting down the time it takes to stop a live attack, explains, Michelle Abraham, senior research director in the International Data Corporation’s Security and Trust Group. Overcoming blind spots The ability for AI agents to observe all relevant data, agent actions and system states in real time – with few blind spots – is a baseline requirement, Abraham continues. This includes transparency to correlate signals across domains such as identity, endpoint, network, cloud and SaaS. “AI agents require zero blind spot visibility in order to detect lateral movement, privilege escalation and multi-stage attacks, in order to provide auditable, explainable and reversible actions,” she says. “Relying on fragmented data and control planes means agents operate with partial context, which leads to missed detections, increased false positives and negatives, and