Intent
What task, instruction, or event caused the agent to act?
AI Agent Security Assessment
Before your AI agent touches production APIs, know its blast radius.
A scoped engineering assessment of one agent workflow, its authority and the controls needed for a pilot or launch decision.
Buyer problem
An assistant can retrieve sensitive documents, change a ticket, draft a customer message or influence software delivery. The team needs to know which inputs can redirect those actions and which controls enforce the intended boundary.
Best fit: Engineering, security, product and AI platform leads preparing document assistants, support agents, internal tool users or coding workflows for broader access.
Scope
Agree on one workflow, system owners, environments, authorized accounts and permitted test actions. Trace the model or orchestrator, memory, retrieval, connectors, credentials, approvals, logs and downstream effects. Use redacted materials and synthetic data first; confirm written test authorization, stop conditions and artifact handling before execution.
Deliverable
A concrete work product tied to the decision.
The agreed package connects the trust-boundary map and permission matrix to observed checks, untested assumptions, prioritized findings and a decision memo. Each recommendation identifies the affected workflow, owner and acceptance criterion.
Timeline
The schedule is agreed after confirming the workflow, materials and test access. Missing access and added workflows change the scope and delivery date.
Signature view / agent control plane
Trace authority from model decision to real-world action.
The review follows one agent action across the control plane: what shaped the decision, what authority was available, and where a person can still intervene.
Context
What memory, retrieval, or tool output influenced the decision?
Tool
Which tool, API, or workflow did the agent attempt to use?
Authority
Which identity, token, permission, and data boundary applied?
Operator
Where can a person approve, contain, roll back, or stop the action?
Common assessment scopes
Not every AI-security review needs the same shape. The right scope depends on what the agent can see, what it can do, what can influence it, and what decision the assessment needs to support.
These are common review paths inside a TKOResearch AI Agent Security Assessment.
AI-assisted CI/CD workflow review
For agents, copilots, or LLM workflows that touch source code, pull requests, issues, build pipelines, test output, deployment logic, or remediation workflows.
Review focus
- Repository permissions
- Workflow triggers
- Fork, issue, comment, and pull-request trust boundaries
- Secrets and token exposure
- Branch protection and approval logic
- Agent-generated code, commands, and config changes
- Tool calls that influence build, test, release, or deployment behavior
- Artifacts needed to reconstruct what happened after a bad change or manipulated workflow
Use this before allowing an AI system to write code, open pull requests, approve changes, trigger workflows, or influence software delivery decisions.
MCP and tool-use blast-radius review
For agents connected to MCP servers, internal tools, SaaS platforms, local resources, filesystems, APIs, databases, ticketing systems, CRM, email, or other action-capable integrations.
Review focus
- MCP clients, servers, tools, and credentials
- OAuth and authorization boundaries
- Tool descriptions and parameter schemas
- Read, write, delete, send, publish, approve, deploy, and execute permissions
- High-impact action gates
- Local-server exposure
- Tool-output poisoning
- Logging, traceability, and kill-switch paths
Use this before connecting an agent to tools or credentials that can change real systems.
RAG and retrieval-boundary review
For agents or LLM applications that retrieve documents, tickets, web content, customer data, internal knowledge, source code, or other context at runtime.
Review focus
- Tenant and authorization boundaries
- Retrieved-content trust labels
- Prompt assembly
- Instruction/data separation
- RAG poisoning and stored prompt injection
- Sensitive-data leakage paths
- Document-source provenance
- Context filtering and policy enforcement
- Artifact capture for retrieved chunks and generated output
Use this before relying on retrieval-augmented generation for customer-facing, internal, regulated, or decision-support workflows.
Production-readiness Go/No-Go review
For teams preparing an AI agent for production, enterprise security review, customer diligence, board review, or broader internal access.
Review focus
- System boundary
- Data access
- Tool permissions
- Credential scope
- Operator controls
- Human approval gates
- Abuse-case matrix
- Deployment risk
- Monitoring and auditability
- Launch blockers versus acceptable residual risk
Use this when leadership needs a decision-ready answer: ready for production, pilot-only, or blocked pending specific controls.
The assessment output stays practical: trust-boundary map, abuse-case matrix, findings register, prioritized remediation roadmap, and an executive Go/No-Go memo.
Sample assessment package
Agree the review boundary, authorized methods, and decision the work must support before starting. The scoped package draws from the outputs below and identifies untested paths and unresolved assumptions alongside the findings.
Scope and required materials
Provide the intended workflow and decision deadline, a deployment and data-flow sketch, tool schemas, identity and connector scopes, data classes, approval rules and redacted trace examples. Initial contact needs a summary, not credentials or customer records.
Threat and control review
Map untrusted documents, messages and tool results to possible unauthorized reads or effects. Review current access checks, exact-action approvals, memory and cache boundaries, credential lifecycle, logging failures and containment. Record both allowed and denied cases.
Technical artifacts
A scoped boundary map, permission matrix and test record describe inputs, versions, expected and observed outcomes, downstream effects and limitations. Unavailable systems and unperformed checks stay visible.
Decision memo
Recommend a bounded pilot, additional restrictions, deferred rollout or further assessment based on the reviewed workflow. State residual risks, decision owner and conditions that reopen review. Leadership owns the launch decision.
Remediation and retest
Rank findings by reachable impact and affected authority. Agree separately on implementation support and a retest window; retest the changed control and nearby allowed and denied cases against an identified version.
Engagement limits
No blanket prompt-injection resistance, certification or complete vulnerability coverage is promised. Production changes, destructive tests, social engineering, third-party systems and unscheduled remediation are excluded unless explicitly added and authorized.
Risk addressed
Tool, data, and trust-boundary risk in one review.
- One permitted workflow and a named decision owner keep the assessment actionable.
- A vendor’s documented feature is recorded separately from configuration inspection and observed runtime behavior.
- A passing local or staging check supports only its tested conditions; production and model changes can require renewed review.
When to use it
Technical review before a consequential decision.
Use this before adding write, send, execute or deployment authority; connecting a sensitive document source; expanding a pilot to another tenant; or approving a material change to the agent’s tools, memory or identity model.
Next step