Proactive, adaptive, autonomous: The agentic AI approach to cybersecurity

For most IT teams and MSPs, the most visible day-to-day work often revolves around asset management and device upkeep. But beneath the surface lies one of their most critical responsibilities: cybersecurity. Given the sharp rise in cyberthreats and attacks in the last few years, this has become all the more critical. 

Cyberattacks are escalating both in terms of frequency and severity. Global cybercrime damages are projected to grow by 15% annually and reach $10.5 trillion by 2025. In the last quarter of 2024 alone, organizations faced an average of 1,876 cyberattacks per week, a 75% increase over the previous year. 

Organizations need to step up the time, resources, and investment they dedicate to cybersecurity. For MSPs and IT teams, the stakes are even higher. MSPs typically have admin privileges and complete access to networks for multiple client systems, so they’re particularly attractive targets for cybercriminals. It doesn’t help that tech advancements are making it easier for cybercriminals to launch more sophisticated attacks. 

Clearly, being reactive is no longer enough for MSPs and IT teams. Cybersecurity cannot remain a function of monitoring networks and responding after an attack.  IT teams and MSPs need to take a deliberate, proactive approach and make security a part of daily processes and workflows.

AI has already helped cybersecurity professionals quite a bit by improving the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of many essential tasks, such as automating updates and managing user access.

Agentic AI can move this forward in leaps.

With the autonomous decision-making capability that agentic AI brings, many cybersecurity responsibilities can be handled proactively. MSPs and IT teams will be able to catch and defend security breaches before they hit, and elevate what cybersecurity does for an organization.

Where agentic AI makes a difference

The value that agentic AI adds is that it can go beyond merely alerting stakeholders in case of threats, to taking the necessary corrective or preventive action. Being autonomous, agentic AI-powered systems can initiate countermeasures instantly upon detecting anomalies, without waiting for human approval, and save critical time. This can help thwart attacks and reduce the impact of any attacks that come by.

Rather than waiting for instructions or responding only when prompted, agentic AI will enable MSPs and IT teams to continuously monitor systems, anticipate threats, and take corrective measures.

It can detect suspicious activity, analyze data in real time, correlate signals across multiple environments, and take decisions autonomously to put countermeasures in motion before attacks are perpetrated. 

For instance, agentic AI can connect signals such as an unusual login attempt combined with a sudden spike in outbound traffic, and immediately shut down access before the attack spreads.

There are three key ways agentic AI can transform cybersecurity operations: 

1. Proactive defense 

Let’s take the example of risk assessments. Earlier, IT teams had to manually identify critical assets and analyze the potential impact of a breach. With Agentic AI, these assessments and corrective action can be continuous, not just periodic. AI agents can map assets in real time, flag high-risk areas, and highlight policy gaps such as weak password practices or unmanaged devices. 

The autonomous agentic AI layer then kicks in, with the system taking preventive or remedial action, such as immediately auto-locking a compromised account before an attacker can cause further damage.

Monitoring and patch management are other areas where agentic AI makes a tangible difference. Agentic AI works efficiently even in dynamic environments and can run real-time analysis, making it possible to scan networks round the clock, detect anomalies, and automatically deploy patches before vulnerabilities are exploited. It can also automatically run updates as and when new assets are added to the network, ensuring that no part of the network is left unsecured. This also ensures that the entire IT infrastructure is protected and compliant at all times, leaving no room for issues to creep in.

2. Adaptive monitoring and prevention 

AI models, by nature, are adaptive. For example, they can be trained on large cybersecurity datasets to anticipate future threats and recommend the most effective proactive measures. With every incident, the system learns and adjusts, making defenses stronger over time. 

An AI-driven endpoint security system, for instance, can flag an unusual login attempt, such as an employee account being accessed from an unfamiliar location at an odd hour. Instead of granting access by default, it can enforce adaptive authentication, requiring additional verification or restricting access until the identity is confirmed.

So, taking the agentic AI approach to cybersecurity ensures that your organization is not just secure today but can adapt to changes and refine its threat detection or decision-making capability as things evolve or change.

3. Stronger, optimized daily operations 

Agentic AI can also optimize and streamline routine processes, strengthening the overall security standards across the organization. 

For example, AI agents can track hardware and software inventory and identify recurring issues across service tickets. Instead of technicians repeatedly fixing the same problems, AI agents can put preventive measures in place, reducing downtime and freeing teams to focus on higher-value work.

AI can provide insight into performance through granular, real-time metrics, improving efficiency and accuracy. For routine patch management, AI can provide insight that will help schedule updates in safe windows so updates are deployed automatically across endpoints, ensuring little to no disruption. 

Upgrade your security infrastructure with agentic AI 

With digitization taking over every industry, from education and healthcare to even hospitality, the instances of cyberattacks will only rise. Improving security initiatives and being proactive rather than reactive is no longer an option for MSPs and in-house IT teams. This shift is what will separate resilient organizations from vulnerable ones.

SuperOps’s PSA-RMM platform, powered by agentic AI, is designed to enable you to set the foundation in place for a secure future and defend against cyberattacks before any damage is done. To see how SuperOps can help your organization, schedule a demo with us today!