Portnox Gives Enterprises a Network 'Kill Switch' to Instantly Cut Off Risky AI Agents

Cloud-native platform extends continuous, policy-based access control to AI agents across networks, applications, and infrastructure

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Portnox, a provider of cloud-native enterprise access control, today announced expanded capabilities to help organizations continuously secure and govern the growing number of AI agents and other non-human identities accessing enterprise networks, applications, and infrastructure.

A new integration with Microsoft Defender joins existing integrations with CrowdStrike and SentinelOne, completing a three-partner enforcement layer that converts AI-generated risk signals intelligence into automatic access enforcement for all identities – human and non-human. When any of these platforms detects elevated risk, suspicious activity, or a change in device posture, Portnox can immediately block, quarantine, or revoke access—including access for AI agents—in accordance with the organization's established policies.

The expanded capabilities help close the gap between identifying a potential threat and preventing a risky AI identity from continuing to access enterprise resources.

Extending Zero Trust to AI Identities
AI agents increasingly authenticate to enterprise resources, accessing sensitive information, moving between systems, and performing business-critical actions. Unlike human users, these identities can operate continuously, autonomously, and at machine speed, often across multiple systems, posing significant security risks for organizations. Venture Beat's Q2 2026 Research Report revealed that 54% of enterprises have already experienced a confirmed agent security incident, and 69% of enterprises surveyed admitted to sharing credentials across their AI agents.

Many organizations still manage AI agents and other non-human identities using static credentials, shared accounts, broad permissions, and point-in-time authentication. These approaches can leave security teams with limited visibility into what an AI agent is accessing, whether its behavior has changed, and whether that access should continue.

"AI agents are becoming active participants in the enterprise, but many organizations are still relying on access models built for human users and managed devices," said Denny LeCompte, CEO of Portnox. "Every identity that can connect, access data, or act must be continuously verified and governed. Portnox gives organizations the ability to immediately restrict access when trust changes, without waiting for an AI agent to create a larger security incident."

Addressing this challenge requires an independent enforcement point that can prevent continued access when an AI identity's behavior, posture, or risk changes.

Turning Risk Intelligence Into Access Enforcement
CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, and Microsoft Defender provide organizations with intelligence about device posture, threats, and suspicious activity. Portnox applies that intelligence to access policies at the network layer, enabling an automated enforcement process.

Portnox effectively gives organizations an access "kill switch" at the network layer. While identity and privileged access management tools govern who or what should have access, Portnox provides an independent enforcement point that can immediately block, quarantine, or revoke connectivity when risk changes, even if an identity platform has not yet changed or revoked the identity's permissions.

Together, these capabilities enable a three-step enforcement process:

• Detect: The three-partner enforcement layer identifies elevated risk, a threat, or a posture change.
• Evaluate: The Portnox policy engine evaluates the signal against the organization's defined access policies in real time.
• Enforce: Portnox automatically blocks, quarantines, or revokes access to the appropriate enterprise resources.

"The gap we keep seeing is between knowing something's wrong and actually doing something about it," said Garrett Gross, Field CISO at Portnox. "A lot of tools can tell you an AI agent is behaving strangely. Very few can act on that at the network layer, without waiting on a human to approve a ticket. That's the piece we're closing."

This approach enables organizations to respond at the speed at which AI agents operate while maintaining consistent policy enforcement and a complete audit trail.

Greater Control and Visibility Across AI Access
Portnox helps organizations reduce the risk posed by compromised or overprivileged AI identities by enforcing scoped, policy-based access and limiting their ability to move laterally across the environment.

Security and IT teams also gain visibility into which identity connected, when and where it connected, what it was authorized to access, and which policy governed the decision. This helps organizations maintain consistent visibility and auditability across networks, applications, and infrastructure.

To learn more about how Portnox applies continuous access control to AI identities, visit www.portnox.com/portnox-cloud/ai/.

Also, join Portnox on September 10 for "The Identity Blind Spot," a webinar on the AI agent access control gap. Register here.

About Portnox
Portnox is a cloud-native enterprise access control provider that helps organizations secure every identity – human and non-human – across networks, applications, and infrastructure. As identities, devices, and workloads multiply across modern environments, Portnox enables continuous access verification based on identity context, device posture, and risk signals.

Its unified platform brings together passwordless authentication, access control, continuous policy enforcement, and automated response through a single policy engine. Portnox gives security and IT teams real-time visibility into everything connecting and the ability to quickly restrict, quarantine, or revoke non-compliant access.

Today, Portnox actively manages more than one million devices worldwide, secures 40 million authentication sessions, and blocks over one million unauthorized access attempts every day. Learn more at www.portnox.com and follow Portnox on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Portnox