AI Attack Automation Is Here. And It’s Coming for Your Credentials.

1. Credential Theft Is Still the #1 Objective

Once again, the attackers went straight for secrets, API keys, passwords, tokens. That’s where the value lies. 

The lesson? Stop using long lived credentials!!

Long-lived credentials are sitting ducks for automated attacks. True defense can’t rely on credentials that stay in one place waiting to be stolen. Replace them with non-human identity, and use credentials that are dynamically issued and short-lived, not static secrets.

Attack automation should be your wake-up call to accelerate efforts to eliminate secrets before you’re overwhelmed by machine-speed credential theft.

2. Fight AI Automation with Identity Automation

Automation isn’t just for attackers, it’s a powerful tool for defense. However, If automation is simply used to manage long-lived credentials (scanning, rotation, etc) it only automates maintenance, not risk reduction. That’s paying to protect something that attackers can steal for pennies. Attack automation lowers the cost of offense. Secrets automation raises the cost of defense.

The best automation eliminates the target entirely. While you can use automation to scan for exposed credentials, by the time you find them, they may already be compromised. Instead, automate NHI credential management so workloads prove their identity and receive short-lived credentials on demand. Fight automation with automation, and automate NHI credential management to eliminate long-lived secrets and tokens and reduce overall risk.

3. AI Attacks only get better over time

Anthropic’s safety work is commendable. Limiting access, filtering prompts, and hardening models all help, but they won’t stop the trend. Attackers will simply shift to other (often cheaper) models, open-source or self-hosted LLMs, or offshore services with fewer guardrails. Once an effective workflow or agent pattern emerges, it can be copied and spread instantly.

Attack automation compounds over time, just like DevOps pipelines, only with malicious outcomes. These automated attack patterns will continually improve and proliferate as skill and cost barriers fall.

This isn’t a model problem but a paradigm shift. Machine intelligence is redefining the economics of cyber offense. The cost of launching attacks is dropping while the cost of defense keeps rising, unless we automate our defenses too.

Why Automating Identity Beats Managing Secrets

The goal for attackers isn’t changing, but their ability to pursue it is getting faster and more efficient. Most defenses still treat secrets like assets that need to be stored, rotated, vaulted and eventually found when they leak. When attacks are automated by AI, secrets are both a risk and a target. Vaults and secrets managers help store static credentials. Defakto eliminates the need for them. 

At Defakto our automation tips the economic scales back in favour of the defender. Attack costs go up (no reusable credentials) and defense costs go down (no rotation, vault hardening, scanning, remediation). Risk drops significantly because there are no secrets to leak or lose. Start by automating non-human identity lifecycle management so credentials are short-lived, attested, and issued on demand. When credentials are dynamically provisioned without needing long lived secrets, there’s nothing worth stealing. 

The Bottom Line

As attackers use AI to automate credential theft, relying on static secrets simply won’t hold up. When attacks cost pennies to launch and scale infinitely, traditional defenses can’t keep pace economically. The challenge isn’t whether to eliminate secrets, it’s knowing where to start. Defakto helps organizations cut through the complexity and automate the non-human identity lifecycle so systems can authenticate without long-lived credentials at all.

We’ve helped customers identify their highest-risk credentials and eliminate them in weeks, not months. If you’re ready to start but unsure where to begin, let’s map out your first wins.

Reach out to talk with one of our Defakto Identity Architects.