AI Agents Inventory and Attributes - Security attributes for the AI Agents Inventory

AI Agents Inventory and Attributes

Chapter 19. Security attributes for the AI Agents Inventory

Authored and Published By: The International Foundation for Information Technology (IF4IT), LLC

Executive Summary: Chapter Overview

IF4IT

The Bottom Line

Security attributes govern the agent as a non-human identity: the identity it authenticates under, the credentials it holds, the permissions and access scope it has been granted, its spending limits, and its protection against prompt injection. This is the category the governance frameworks stress most, because an agent’s access is its blast radius.

Core Concepts

Concept	Definition & Strategic Role
Non-Human Identity	The dedicated, least-privilege machine identity the agent acts under — governed like a privileged user.
Access Scope	The specific systems, data, and actions the agent is permitted — the practical measure of its reach.

Quick Q&A

Question: Why is a non-human identity central to governing an agent?

Answer: Because the agent acts under that identity, its credentials and permissions define exactly what it can reach and do; governing the identity — least privilege, no shared credentials, reviewed access — is how the agent’s blast radius is contained.

Read More Below

Security attributes govern each agent’s identity, credentials, access, and protection against attack.

Attribute Name	Maturity	Description and Notes
Non-Human Identity	Crawl	Description — The dedicated machine identity the agent authenticates and acts under, scoped to least privilege. Benefit(s) — Makes the agent individually attributable and revocable, and its access reviewable — no shared or accumulating credentials. Source — Manual. Examples — Dedicated service identity
Credentials [Multi-Value]	Walk	Description — The API keys, OAuth grants, and service-account credentials the agent holds. Benefit(s) — Inventories the secrets that must be rotated, scoped, and revoked at retirement. Source — Derived. Examples — orders-api-key; crm-oauth-grant Notes — Record references, never secret values.
Permissions and Access Scope [Multi-Value]	Crawl	Description — The specific systems, data, and action types the agent is authorized to reach. Benefit(s) — Defines the agent’s true reach and is the basis for least-privilege review and offboarding. Source — Manual. Examples — Read orders datastore; write CRM notes
Spending Limits	Walk	Description — Caps on the financial actions or resource consumption the agent may incur. Benefit(s) — Bounds the financial blast radius of an autonomous agent. Source — Manual. Notes — Financial totals are tracked in the Financial category.
Prompt-Injection Protection	Walk	Description — The measures in place to prevent adversarial instructions from subverting the agent. Benefit(s) — Addresses the defining attack class against model-driven agents. Source — Manual. Examples — Input sanitization; instruction isolation
Last Security Audit	Walk	Description — The date and outcome of the most recent security review of the agent. Benefit(s) — Shows how current the agent’s security assurance is. Source — Manual. Notes — Related controls link to the Security Assets and Controls Inventory.

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💡 The Bottom Line

📝 Core Concepts

🤖 Quick Q&A

How to cite this page

The Bottom Line

Core Concepts

Quick Q&A