Hacker Valley Studio·Sep 30, 2026·32m·Episode #445

Giving Your AI Agent Its Own Identity with Ashish Rajan

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Show notes

00:00 - Introduction
02:30 - Busting a myth: AI identity isn't solved
05:30 - Three OSCP attempts and a pivot to IAM
07:00 - Why AI identity is more complex than ever
09:15 - Hot or not: giving an AI agent its own accounts
11:10 - One laptop, five machines in the enterprise
12:50 - AI gateways and developer observability
14:05 - Where Ashish would spend his AI security budget
18:20 - Why defenders don't hack themselves first
19:05 - The real problem is people
22:15 - Swarms of agents are coming
23:50 - What AI Security Lab is building
26:35 - Never share your credit card with AI
28:40 - Ron's callback: can it be reversed?

Links
Connect with Ashish Rajan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishrajan/

Listen to Ashish's first Hacker Valley Studio episode: https://www.podbean.com/pw/pbblog-bpaij-51b280
–
Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams

Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com

Become a sponsor of the show: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/

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From Read Access to Admin with just an AI Agent

Your newest hire has a Google Workspace account, a Slack login and a laptop. It never sleeps, and it never asks before it acts. So who owns its identity? Ron welcomes back Ashish Rajan, CISO at Techriot.io and researcher with AI Security Lab, who spent 17 years in identity, cloud security and security leadership. His take: vendors haven't solved AI identity, and the open questions are on your side, not the product's. Ashish got into identity after failing his OSCP three times: if he couldn't break in, he wouldn't let anyone else in. Now he reviews Ron's own setup, where Hacker Valley's AI agent, Jennifer Romani, has her own accounts just like an employee. Ashish explains how that call changes from a one-laptop small business to an enterprise where every developer's machine acts like five. They also cover the Gemini breach headlines, swarms of agents and AI Security Lab, which Ashish describes as what OWASP is for AppSec, but for AI security. The uncomfortable truth: defenders have the same models attackers do, but attackers don't wait for a pull request review. Ashish calls that a people problem, not a technology problem. He also shares the question he asks before handing anything to an AI agent: can this be reversed? Impactful Moments 00:00 - Introduction 02:30 - Busting a myth: AI identity isn't solved 05:30 - Three OSCP attempts and a pivot to IAM 07:00 - Why AI identity is more complex than ever 09:15 - Hot or not: giving an AI agent its own accounts 11:10 - One laptop, five machines in the enterprise 12:50 - AI gateways and developer observability 14:05 - Where Ashish would spend his AI security budget 18:20 - Why defenders don't hack themselves first 19:05 - The real problem is people 22:15 - Swarms of agents are coming 23:50 - What AI Security Lab is building 26:35 - Never share your credit card with AI 28:40 - Ron's callback: can it be reversed? Links Connect with Ashish Rajan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishrajan/ Listen to Ashish's first Hacker Valley Studio episode: https://www.podbean.com/pw/pbblog-bpaij-51b280 – Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com Become a sponsor of the show: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/