Skip to content
VirtualOnlinePast event

The Dark Side of Autonomous Agents: How to Stop Them

Explore the topics

Event artwork for The Dark Side of Autonomous Agents: How to Stop Them

This event has ended

This listing is kept as an archive. Explore upcoming events to find your next one.

See upcoming events
About this event

What to expect

Learn how autonomous AI agents can be hijacked,and how zero-trust architecture can protect enterprise data,in this live, practical online security session.

On Wednesday 19 August 2026, from 12:00–12:45 PM Eastern Time, Global AI Jacksonville will examine the short but dangerous path from useful AI assistant to rogue execution vector. The session focuses on vulnerabilities created when agent runtime behaviour depends on unprotected external Markdown files while static credentials remain exposed in plain text.

Rather than discussing AI security only in the abstract, the event follows an incremental technical demonstration. It begins with a data analyst agent managing datasets across a data lake, shows an adversarial process hijacking that agent in real time, and then introduces cryptographic and zero-trust patterns designed to protect enterprise data infrastructure.

What the session covers

  • The real-world threat model: Explore recent agent breaches and see how untrusted input in Specification-Driven Development (SDD) files can trigger malicious code execution inside an over-privileged runtime.
  • The baseline vulnerability: Examine a standard data analyst agent governed by external Markdown specifications and .env files, including the risks created by traditional file handling.
  • The live exploit: Watch a rogue “dark agent” poison an external SDD file. The compromised analyst agent then parses the injection, attempts to exfiltrate database keys and creates destructive queries targeting the data warehouse.
  • The zero-trust remedy: Learn architectural approaches for hardening agent systems rather than relying on trust in external instructions.
  • Companion file signatures: See how .signed.md files and build-time cryptographic verification can detect unauthorised prompt mutations before execution.
  • Vault secret isolation: Understand how moving keys out of local environment files can keep secrets out of scope and prevent them from entering active process memory.

Who should attend?…

Register for this event

Running an AI event?

List it here, free.

Meetups, workshops and conferences go in front of thousands of builders after a quick review.

List your event