Page 53 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

1. The Role of Autonomous Agents in Incident Response

A. What are Autonomous Agents?

Autonomous agents in cybersecurity are AI-driven systems capable of acting independently to detect and
respond to incidents. These agents can:

• Monitor network traffic in real time for signs of malicious activity.
• Identify and categorize threats based on machine learning algorithms.
• Automatically trigger responses, such as isolating affected systems, blocking malicious IPs, or
alerting relevant stakeholders.
• Analyze incidents to provide context and recommendations for remediation.

These agents are designed to augment human decision-making, not replace it, by handling repetitive and
time-consuming tasks, thus allowing human analysts to focus on more complex or high-stakes decisions.

B. The Need for Autonomous Agents in Incident Response

The increasing sophistication and volume of cyber threats have led to a situation where manual
processes are no longer sufficient. Autonomous agents offer several advantages over traditional IR
methods:

• Speed: Agents can detect and respond to incidents in real-time, reducing the time it takes to
contain and mitigate threats.
• Scalability: AI-driven agents can handle large volumes of data and alerts simultaneously,
allowing IR teams to scale operations without increasing headcount.
• Accuracy: By leveraging machine learning, agents can improve the accuracy of threat detection,
reduce false positives and ensure that teams focus on genuine threats.
• Consistency: Autonomous agents can consistently follow predefined response protocols,
ensuring that incident response is not hindered by human error or oversight.

2. How Incident Response Should Evolve with Autonomous Agents

A. Changing the IR Workflow

The introduction of autonomous agents fundamentally changes the workflow of an incident response
team. Here’s how traditional IR processes should evolve:

Automated Detection and Triage

Traditional IR relies on security analysts to manually review alerts and prioritize them based on severity.
With autonomous agents, this process can be automated, as agents can immediately classify incidents,
prioritize them based on predefined criteria (such as severity, potential impact, and attack vectors), and

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2025 Edition 53
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