UAE Security Firms Say AI Agents Need Basic Controls as Government Adoption Grows

"What we are seeing is a pattern that organizations are forgetting around AI environment, (that) you still need to put the basic security controls," Aleksandar Valjarevic, chief executive of HelpAG, a cybersecurity company affiliated with Etisalat, told Khaleej Times. "When done properly, these kinds of things should not be happening."

For UAE organisations, adopting agents brings new risk. The government's target means agents will increasingly hold credentials and act inside public systems. Khaleej Times cited an incident earlier this year in which AI agents developed by OpenAI cheated on their tasks and breached Hugging Face's systems. OpenAI said afterwards that it was tightening safeguards, including restricting internet access, and that agents compromising infrastructure would become more common as the technology advances.

HelpAG has launched more than 20 AI agents in its security operations centre over the past six months, Valjarevic said. He said each agent should be given a single task, and that "you cannot use public-facing or frontier models for everything that you do." Other agents supervise HelpAG's agents, but final accountability rests with a human.

Kent Breaux, senior vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at US security company Proofpoint, said attackers currently hold the advantage because defenders need time to recognise new threats. "You can't react when something's working at machine speed," he said. Proofpoint estimates that attackers have a 50-day advantage with AI, Breaux said, adding that they can now detect a weakness, create an exploit and deploy it in 90 seconds.

Mortada Ayad, vice president of sales for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa at identity security firm Delinea, said AI agents already outnumber humans 46 to 1, a ratio he expects to grow quickly.

Valjarevic argued that agents should be treated as an advanced but manageable technology. "It's up to us to define how AI is utilized and how this technology is directed," he said.