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“You can deceive, manipulate, and lie. That’s an inherent property of language. It’s a feature, not a flaw,” CrowdStrike CTO Elia Zaitsev told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview at RSA Conference 2026. If deception is baked into language itself, every vendor trying to secure AI agents by analyzing their intent is chasing a problem that cannot be conclusively solved. Zaitsev is betting on context instead. CrowdStrike’s Falcon sensor walks the process tree on an endpoint and tracks what agents did, not what agents appeared to intend. “Observing actual kinetic actions is a structured, solvable problem,” Zaitsev told VentureBeat. “Intent is not.”That argument landed 24 hours after CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz disclosed two production incidents at Fortune 50 companies. In the first, a CEO’s AI agent rewrote the company’s own security policy — not because it was compromised, but because it wanted to fix a problem, lacked the permissions to do so, and removed the restriction itself. Every identity check passed; the company caught the modification by accident. The second incident involved a 100-agent Slack swarm that delegated a code fix between agents with no human approval. Agent 12 made the commit. The team discovered it after the fact.Two incidents at two Fortune 50 companies. Caught by accident both times. Every identity framework that shipped at RSAC this week missed them. The vendors verified who the agent was. None of them tracked what the agent did.The urgency behind every framework launch reflects a broader market shift. “The difficulty of securing agentic AI is likely to push customers toward trusted platform vendors that can offer broader coverage across the expanding attack surface,” according to William Blair’s RSA Conference 2026 equity research report by analyst Jonathan Ho. Five vendors answered that call at RSAC this week. None of them answered it completely.Attackers are already inside enterprise pilotsThe scale of the exposure is already visible in production data. CrowdStrike’s Falcon sensors detect more than 1,800 distinct AI applications across the company’s customer fleet, generating 160 million unique instances on enterprise endpoints. Cisco found that 85% of its enterprise customers surveyed have pilot agent programs; only 5% have moved to production, meaning the vast majority of these agents are running without the governance structures production deployments typically require. “The biggest impediment to scaled adoption in enterprises for business-critical tasks is establishing a sufficient amount of trust,” Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview at RSA Conference 2026. “Delegating versus trusted delegating of tasks to agents. The difference between those two, one leads to bankruptcy and the other leads to market dominance.”Etay Maor, VP of Threat Intelligence at Cato Networks, ran a live Censys scan during an exclusive VentureBeat interview at RSA Conference 2026 and counted nearly 500,000 internet-facing OpenClaw instances. The week before: 230,000. Cato CTRL senior researcher Vitaly Simonovich documented a BreachForums listing from February 22, 2026, published on the Cato CTRL blog on February 25, where a threat actor advertised root shell access to a UK CEO’s computer for $25,000 in cryptocurrency. The selling point was the CEO’s OpenClaw AI personal assistant, which had accumulated the company’s production database, Telegram bot tokens, and Trading 212 API keys in plain-text Markdown with no encryption at rest. “Your AI? It’s my AI now. It’s an assistant for the attacker,” Maor told VentureBeat.The exposure data from multiple independent researchers tells the same story. Bitsight found more than 30,000 OpenClaw instances exposed to the public internet between January 27 and February 8, 2026. SecurityScorecard identified 15,200 of those instances as vulnerable to remote code execution through three high-severity CVEs, the worst rated CVSS 8.8. Koi Security found 824 malicious skills on ClawHub — 335 of them tied to ClawHavoc, which Kurtz flagged in his keynote as the first major supply chain attack on an AI agent ecosystem.Five vendors, three gaps none of them closedCisco went deepest on identity governance. Duo Agentic Identity registers agents as distinct identity objects mapped to human owners, and every tool call routes through an MCP gateway in Secure Access SSE. Cisco Identity Intelligence catches shadow agents by monitoring network traffic rather than authentication logs. Patel told VentureBeat that today’s agents behave “more like teenagers — supremely intelligent, but with no fear of consequence, easily sidetracked or influenced.” CrowdStrike made the biggest philosophical bet, treating agents as endpoint telemetry and tracking the kinetic layer through Falcon’s process-tree lineage. CrowdStrike expanded AIDR to cover Microsoft Copilot Studio agents and shipped Shadow SaaS and AI Agent Discovery across Copilot, Salesforce Agentforce, ChatGPT Enterprise, and OpenAI Enterprise GPT.Palo Alto Networks built Prisma AIRS 3.0 with an agentic registry, an agentic IDP, and an MCP gateway for runtime traffic control. Palo Alto Networks’ pending Koi acquisition adds supply chain and runtime visibility. Microsoft spread governance across Entra, Purview, Sentinel, and Defender, with Microsoft Sentinel embedding MCP natively and a Claude MCP connector in public preview April 1. Cato CTRL delivered the adversarial proof that the identity gaps the other four vendors are trying to close are already being exploited. Maor told VentureBeat that enterprises abandoned basic security principles when deploying agents. “We just gave these AI tools complete autonomy,” Maor said.Gap 1: Agents can rewrite the rules governing their own behaviorThe Kurtz incident illustrates the gap exactly. Every credential check passed — the action was authorized. Zaitsev argues that the only reliable detection happens at the kinetic layer: which file was modified, by what process, initiated by what agent, compared against a behavioral baseline. Intent-based controls evaluate whether the call looks malicious. This one did not. Palo Alto Networks offers pre-deployment red teaming in Prisma AIRS 3.0, but red teaming runs before deployment, not during runtime when self-modification happens. No vendor ships behavioral anomaly detection for policy-modifying actions as a production capability.Patel framed the stakes in the VentureBeat interview: “The agent takes the wrong action and worse yet, some of those actions might be critical actions that are not reversible.” Board question: An authorized agent modifies the policy governing the agent’s future actions. What fires?Gap 2: Agent-to-agent handoffs have no trust verificationThe 100-agent swarm is the proof point. Agent A found a defect and posted to Slack. Agent 12 executed the fix. No human approved the delegation. Zaitsev’s approach: collapse agent identities back to the human. An agent acting on your behalf should never have more privileges than you do. But no product follows the delegation chain between agents. IAM was built for human-to-system. Agent-to-agent delegation needs a trust primitive that does not exist in OAuth, SAML, or MCP.Gap 3: Ghost agents hold live credentials with no offboardingOrganizations adopt AI tools, run a pilot, lose interest, and move on. The agents keep running. The credentials stay active. Maor calls these abandoned instances ghost agents. Zaitsev connected ghost agents to a broader failure: agents expose where enterprises delayed action on basic identity hygiene. Standing privileged accounts, long-lived credentials, and missing offboarding procedures. These problems existed for humans. Agents running at machine speed make the consequences catastrophic.Maor demonstrated a Living Off the AI attack at the RSA Conference 2026, chaining Atlassian’s MCP and Jira Service Management to show that attackers do not separate trusted tools, services, and models. Attackers chain all three. “We need an HR view of agents,” Maor told VentureBeat. “Onboarding, monitoring, offboarding. If there’s no business justification? Removal.”Why these three gaps resist a product fixHuman IAM assumes the identity holder will not rewrite permissions, spawn new identities, or leave. Agents violate all three. OAuth handles user-to-service. SAML handles federated human identity. MCP handles model-to-tool. None includes agent-to-agent verification.Five vendors against three gapsCiscoCrowdStrikeMicrosoftPalo Alto NetworksUnsolvedRegistration. Can the vendor discover and inventory agents?Duo Agentic Identity. Agents registered as identity objects with human owners. Shadow agent detection via network traffic.Falcon sensor auto-discovery. 1,800+ agent apps, ~160M instances across customer fleet.Security Dashboard for AI + Entra shadow AI detection at the network layer.Agentic registry in Prisma AIRS 3.0. Agents inventoried before operating.All four register agents. No cross-vendor identity standard exists.Self-modification. Can the vendor detect when an agent changes its own policies?MCP gateway catches anomalous tool-call patterns in real time, but does not monitor for direct policy file modifications on the endpoint.Process-tree lineage tracks file modifications at the action layer. Could detect a policy file change, but no dedicated self-modification rule ships.Defender predictive shielding adjusts access policies reactively during active attacks. Not proactive self-modification detection.AI Red Teaming tests for this before deployment. No runtime detection after the agent is live.OPEN. No vendor detects an agent rewriting the policy governing the agent’s own behavior as a shipping capability.Delegation. Can the vendor track when one agent hands work to another?Maps each agent to a human owner. Does not track agent-to-agent handoffs.Collapses the agent identity to the human operator. Does not correlate the delegation chains between agents.Entra governs individual non-human identities. No multi-agent chain tracking.AI Agent Gateway governs individual agents. No delegation primitive between agents.OPEN. No trust primitive for agent-to-agent delegation exists in OAuth, SAML, or MCP.Decommission. Can the vendor confirm a killed agent holds zero credentials?Identity Intelligence runs a continuous inventory of active agents.Shadow SaaS + AI Agent Discovery finds running agents across SaaS and endpoints.Entra’s shadow AI detection surfaces unmanaged AI applications.Koi acquisition (pending) adds endpoint visibility for agent applications.OPEN. All four discover running agents. None verifies zero residual credentials after decommission.Runtime / Kinetic. Can the vendor monitor what agents do in real time?MCP gateway enforces policy per tool call at the network layer. Contextual anomaly detection on call patterns.Falcon EDR tracks commands, scripts, file activity, and network connections at the process level.Defender endpoint + cloud monitoring. Predictive shielding during active incidents.Prisma AIRS AI Agent Gateway for runtime traffic control.CrowdStrike is the only vendor framing endpoint runtime as the primary safety net for agentic behavior.Five things to do Monday morning before your board asksAudit self-modification risk. Pull every agent with write access to security policies, IAM configs, firewall rules, or ACLs. Flag any agent that can modify controls governing the agent’s own behavior. No vendor automates this.Map delegation paths. Document every agent-to-agent invocation. Flag delegation without human approval. Human-in-the-loop on every delegation event until a trust primitive ships.Kill ghost agents. Build a registry. For each agent: business justification, human owner, credentials held, systems accessed. No justification? Manual revoke. Weekly.Stress test the MCP gateway enforcement. Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, and Microsoft all announced MCP gateways this week. Verify that agent tool traffic actually routes through the gateway. A misconfigured gateway creates false confidence while agents call tools directly.Baseline agent behavioral norms. Before any agent reaches production, establish what normal looks like: typical API calls, data access patterns, systems touched, and hours of activity. Without a behavioral baseline, the kinetic-layer anomaly detection Zaitsev describes has nothing to compare against.Zaitsev’s advice was blunt: you already know what to do. Agents just made the cost of not doing it catastrophic. Every vendor at RSAC verified who the agent was. None of them tracked what the agent did.

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TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.Why we love this dealWith spring in the air, shelving is flying off the shelves. With barbecue accessories, lawn care, gardening supplies, DIY tools, and outdoor sporting goods — like paddle boards or bike accessories — it’s no wonder you might need some extra storage space. Whether you need to tidy up your garage or make some more room in the mud room or pantry, a heavy-duty shelving unit is never a bad idea, especially if it’s under $40.The Sakugi 5-Tier Heavy-Duty Storage Shelf is a sturdy storage solution for anyone looking for extra storage. At just $34, this versatile shelf can be used anywhere in your home, and offers a 15% off savings for shoppers. The Amazon Spring Deals Sale is almost over, so take advantage of this price today.Sakugi 5-Tier Heavy-Duty Storage Shelf, $34 (was $40) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

Shop at AmazonWhy do shoppers love it?With a weight capacity of up to 500 pounds, this 5-tier shelf is a great option for any type of storage. It features side hooks to hold gardening gloves, barbecue tongs, towels, or even jewelry and accessories in the closet. The utility hooks can be hung on any part of the wiring, or the side bars, or remove the hooks to hang flat towels, belts, or blankets. The small footprint offers easy storage for smaller spaces, like the bathroom or hall closet, while the 5 tiers, movable hooks, and wired shelving offer tons of storage space. Related: Walmart is selling an $89 tote tower that holds 250 pounds and makes garage storage so much easierThe shelf measures 18.1 inches wide, 12.4 inches deep, and 56.8 inches tall, with each shelf being able to hold up to 100 pounds, making it great for larger kitchen appliances, heavy tools, and more. The adjustable feet prevent wobbling on uneven surfaces, and the thickened, rust-proof rods are sturdy and easy to clean with a damp cloth. This shelf also excels as garden storage for damp soil or wet hoses as the wiring is waterproof and the design allows for easy air flow to keep everything dry, preventing moisture buildup and mold. It’s also a great option for drying out your paddleboard, rain boots, and more. Details to knowSize: The shelf measures 18.1 inches wide, 12.4 inches deep, and 56.8 inches tall.Weight Capacity: Each shelf holds up to 100 pounds.Storage options: This unit features hooks, hanging bars, and full shelves. One reviewer said, “It’s nice, sturdy, and works perfectly for storing my appliances that aren’t in use. Each shelf is fairly spacious, and there isn’t any sort of wobble that would make me think it isn’t sturdy.””This is a great little metal shelf. It holds a lot,” another shopper said. “It has accurate measurements, and it’s super easy to assemble.”Shop more dealsGolpart 5-Tier Shelving Rack, $37 (was $43) at AmazonWhitmor 5-Tier Shelving Unit with 2000-Pound Capacity, $48 (was $56) at AmazonSingaye Small Adjustable 5-Tier Kitchen Rack, $30 (was $40) at AmazonThe Sakugi 5-Tier Heavy-Duty Storage Shelf is versatile, easy to use, and holds lots of weight. Hang accessories, kitchen utensils, backpacks, and more on the hooks, and use it in the pantry, garage, laundry room, hallway, and more; the options are endless. For just $34, this shelving unit is a great deal, offering shoppers a savings of 15% off.

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TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.Why we love this dealBattery-powered tools can be such a game changer when tackling projects around the home. The cabinet that would take hours to put together with just a hand tool? The assembly time can be cut in half with a power tool. The tall grass around the edge of the lawn that needs to be managed with a weed wacker? A battery-powered pick vs. a gas-powered weed wacker can not only save you a trip to the gas station, but also be lighter and easier to hold. You get the picture. One of the many ways to make cordless tools even better is by pairing them with a power-packed rechargeable battery. If you’re in the market for a new battery and happen to be a Craftsman lover, you’re in luck. During the final hours of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, the Craftsman V20 4.0 Ah Lithium-Ion Battery is on sale for just $50. With 58% off the regular price of $119, you’re saving $69 and investing in a battery that can “charge faster” and “last longer between charges.”Craftsman V20 4.0 Ah Lithium-Ion Battery, $50 (was $119) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

Shop at AmazonWhy do shoppers love it?The Craftsman V20 4.0 Ah Lithium-Ion Battery offers extra power at a more affordable price, at least during Amazon’s Big Spring Sale. It has an extended run time and triple the battery life compared to standard lithium batteries — thanks to professional-grade high-performance cells — which makes it a dream for longer projects and even heavy-duty jobsites. Complete with a built-in fuel gauge that features three LED lights, you can always keep an eye on how much juice is left in the battery pack, too.Unlike other batteries that might not be able to hold a charge over time, this Craftsman battery has “long-lasting power,” with virtually no memory or self-discharge. That means it can hold its charge for extended periods of time, even when it’s not in use, without affecting its overall performance and capacity.While the battery pack is on the heavier side at 1.6 pounds — at least compared to Craftsman’s V20 2.0 Ah compact battery — the payoff is worth it for the power it comes with. Run times can last anywhere between 45 minutes and one hour with this model. And since it’s on sale, you can purchase two for the price of one, always ensuring you have a backup battery to keep home projects and tasks moving along without having to wait a while between charges.Related: Amazon is selling a 26-drawer organizer for only $31 with over 40,000 5-star ratingsPros and cons of the Craftsman V20 4.0 Ah Lithium-Ion BatteryProsLong run time: With three times the capacity of a standard 20V Max battery, its battery can last for 45 minutes to one hour on a single charge. Fuel gauge: The 3-LED built-in fuel gauge shows how much power the battery has left.No memory: With practically no self-discharge, it won’t lose its maximum capacity over time. ConsA bit heavy: At 1.4 pounds, it adds extra weight to the tools you’re using. It’s also almost double the weight of Craftsman’s V20 compact battery.Long charge time: It takes approximately one hour to fully charge the battery, which can extend project times if you don’t have multiple batteries.”The quality of craftsman batteries are amazing,” an Amazon shopper said. “They are easy to use, and fit into power tools great. The weight is perfect as it’s not too much to carry around extra batteries while working.”While it’s pricier than off-brand alternatives, shoppers say the Craftsman name is worth the price. “The Craftsman [battery] may cost more, but they’ll last forever, or at least plenty long enough for you to forget where they came from or how much you spent,” another reviewer said. They said that even after months of use, the power is as good as it was from day one.Shop more dealsYmwlkj Craftsman 20V Compact Battery Charger, $19 (was $20) at AmazonCraftsman V20 Cordless Drill/Driver Kit, $69 (was $99) at AmazonCraftsman V20 Cordless Hand Vacuum, $40 (was $46) at AmazonThe Craftsman V20 4.0 Ah Lithium-Ion Battery is just $50 with a 58% discount, but it won’t be for long. It’s the perfect time to give your Craftsman tools long-lasting power, whether you’re putting together furniture, vacuuming, or trimming the lawn. 

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Verizon is raising the price of a heavily discounted offer, despite its CEO, Dan Schulman, recently criticizing the company’s previous price increases for driving away customers.During an earnings call in January, Schulman said the company lost 2.25 million customers over the past three years “largely from prior pricing actions as well as competition.”“Price increases without corresponding value,” said Schulman. “That just irritates some customers, and we’ve seen the churn rise as a result of that, and we’ve stopped doing that, and we’re going to start adding value to it.”Last year, Verizon raised prices for its myPlan and New Verizon Plan accounts due to “rising operational costs.” It also increased prices for its Verizon Mobile Protect Multi-Device and Verizon Mobile Secure Multi-Device plans by $8. The carrier’s device activation fee also went up, and it pulled the plug on loyalty discounts. Amid these price increases, Verizon’s operating revenue increased from $134.8 billion in 2024 to $138.2 billion in 2025, according to the company’s most recent earnings report. However, the carrier’s postpaid phone churn reached 0.98% last year, up from 0.88% in 2024.The uptick in customer losses doesn’t come as a surprise, as a WhistleOut survey last year found that wireless consumers nationwide are sick of price hikes. Roughly 58% of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile customers are considering switching to a different phone carrier as prices rise, according to the survey. Verizon risks losing 84.7 million customers as a result. Verizon increases monthly price of a major customer perkDespite this risk, the carrier is continuing down the path of price hikes, as it recently revealed that it is raising the monthly charge for its Netflix and HBO Max streaming bundle. This streaming perk offers Verizon customers on eligible phone and home internet plans Netflix and HBO Max subscriptions (with ads) for only $10 a month, saving them $8.98 monthly.Related: Verizon plans to walk back controversial policy after backlashAccording to an update on Verizon’s website, the streaming bundle price will increase from $10 to $13 starting May 6.The price hike comes shortly after Netflix raised prices for all subscription plan tiers on March 26, including its ad-supported plan, which increased from $7.99 to $8.99 a month.The last time HBO Max increased its subscription prices was on Oct. 21, when its HBO Max Basic with Ads tier rose from $9.99 to $10.99.

Verizon is raising the price of its Netflix and HBO Max streaming bundle amid customer losses.Shutterstock/Brandon Klein

Verizon customers express frustration over upcoming price increaseIn response to Verizon’s latest pricing update, some customers took to social media platform Reddit to reveal they are canceling their Netflix and HBO Max streaming bundle from the carrier. “Probably going to just cancel it. I don’t watch and TV much anyway. It’s mostly YouTube these days,” wrote one Verizon customer. “Just cancelled my perk. There isn’t anything good on either Netflix or max to continue raising prices,” wrote another.More Verizon News:Verizon CEO shifts gears after 2.25 million customers departVerizon plans to walk back controversial policy after backlashVerizon gets approval to make it harder for customers to leave“They’ll come up with some reason to raise prices on anything they can. I’m switching providers,” wrote another Verizon customer.  The frustration comes at a time when more consumers across the country have been canceling their streaming services in light of rising prices, a recent survey from CableTV.com found.Why Americans are canceling streaming services:Roughly 92% of Americans subscribe to at least one streaming service, while 79% subscribe to more than one.Also, 1 in 3 Americans have canceled a streaming service in the last year.The top three reasons they canceled these services were: high costs (43%), they finished the show/movie they subscribed for (18%), and a lack of new or quality content (18%).Netflix is the most popular streaming service to cancel, with 32% of Americans ending their Netflix subscription in the last 12 months, while 31% canceled Hulu and 31% canceled Disney+.
Source: CableTV.com
In the survey release, Olivia Bono, a staff writer covering streaming at CableTV.com, wrote that “36% of Americans have cancelled a streaming service in the last year, and 44% of those people didn’t replace their service with anything.”“Streaming isn’t necessarily falling out of fashion any time soon, but people are certainly reevaluating how many they need and whether they can afford every service in today’s economy,” she added. Related: T-Mobile tests customer loyalty with another fee hike