{"id":376635,"date":"2026-09-01T08:52:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T15:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=376635"},"modified":"2026-09-01T08:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T15:52:07","slug":"software-agents-overstep-limits-at-65-of-enterprises-new-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/software-agents-overstep-limits-at-65-of-enterprises-new-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Software agents overstep limits at 65% of enterprises: new report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Enterprise Management Associates and Cequence Security have put out a report called \u201cAgents Without Guardrails,\u201d and it looks at what happens when enterprise software agents drift past the boundaries they were supposed to stay within.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sc-card-program\">\r\n  <div class=\"sc-card-program__body\">\r\n    <div class=\"sc-card-program__row clearfix\">\r\n      <div class=\"sc-card-program__col-logo\">\r\n        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sc-card-program__img\" alt=\"Wireshark\" src=\"https:\/\/images.sftcdn.net\/images\/t_app-icon-s\/p\/8ad5933e-96d6-11e6-91ef-00163ec9f5fa\/889402855\/wireshark-logo\" width=\"100px\" height=\"100px\">\r\n      <\/div>\r\n      <div class=\"sc-card-program__col-title\">\r\n        <span class=\"sc-card-program__title\">Wireshark<\/span>\r\n        <a class=\"sc-card-program__button sc-card-program-internal\" href=\"https:\/\/wireshark.en.softonic.com\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Download<\/a>\r\n      <\/div>\r\n      <div class=\"sc-card-program__col-rating\">\r\n        <svg class=\"rating-score__content\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" version=\"1.1\" x=\"0\" y=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 50 50\" enable-background=\"new 0 0 50 50\" xml:space=\"preserve\"><path class=\"rating-score__background rating-score--good\" fill=\"none\" stroke-width=\"6\" stroke-miterlimit=\"10\" d=\"M40 40c8.3-8.3 8.3-21.7 0-30s-21.7-8.3-30 0 -8.3 21.7 0 30\"><\/path><path class=\"rating-score__value rating-score__value--0\" fill=\"none\" stroke-width=\"6\" stroke-dashoffset=\"0\" stroke-miterlimit=\"10\" d=\"M40 40c8.3-8.3 8.3-21.7 0-30s-21.7-8.3-30 0 -8.3 21.7 0 30\"><\/path><text class=\"rating-score__number\" content=\"\" text-anchor=\"middle\" transform=\"matrix(1 0 0 1 25 31.0837)\" data-auto=\"app-user-score\"><\/text><\/svg>\r\n      <\/div>\r\n    <\/div>\r\n    <div class=\"sc-card-program__row\">\r\n      <span class=\"sc-card-program__description\"><\/span>\r\n    <\/div>\r\n    <div class=\"sc-card-program__row\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sc-card-program__bigpic\" src=\"\" onerror=\"this.style.display='none'\">\r\n    <\/div>\r\n    <a class=\"sc-card-program__link track-link sc-card-program-internal\" href=\"https:\/\/wireshark.en.softonic.com\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you&#8217;re already deploying agents, the number to pay attention to is <strong>65%<\/strong>: in the report, 65% of 202 enterprise technology and security leaders said they&#8217;d seen agents operate outside their intended scope.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The breakdown gets more specific from there. According to the report, <strong>29%<\/strong> of those incidents caused measurable harm, 36% were near-misses, and 46% said agents are already running across multiple production workflows.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report is especially blunt on access controls. While 94% of respondents said they were confident their agents weren&#8217;t over-provisioned, only <strong>33%<\/strong> said they actually enforce least-privilege access, which leaves broad standing permissions and written policies that aren&#8217;t enforced as a core weakness.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you&#8217;re responsible for these systems, this is a report you&#8217;ll probably want to read. It says <strong>55%<\/strong> still need hours and manual intervention to contain problems, and 3.5% to 4% said they first learned something was wrong from outsiders, including customers. The report also points to 2026 incidents involving <a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/autonomous-software-agents-face-fresh-hacking-attacks-hidden-instructions-can-leak-your-data\" rel=\"noopener\">autonomous or semi-autonomous tools<\/a>, which show how fast a productivity win can become a security issue.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can get the report from Enterprise Management Associates and Cequence Security.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enterprise Management Associates and Cequence Security have put out a report called \u201cAgents Without Guardrails,\u201d and it looks at what happens when enterprise software agents drift past the boundaries they were supposed to stay within. If you&#8217;re already deploying agents, the number to pay attention to is 65%: in the report, 65% of 202 enterprise &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/software-agents-overstep-limits-at-65-of-enterprises-new-report\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Software agents overstep limits at 65% of enterprises: new report&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9337,"featured_media":376634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[6771],"class_list":["post-376635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","content-category-ai"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376636,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376635\/revisions\/376636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376635"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=376635"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=376635"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=376635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}