Cequence Security, Inc - Experts & Thought Leaders

The Center for Internet Security, Inc. (CIS®), Astrix Security, and Cequence Security now announced a strategic partnership to develop new cybersecurity guidance tailored to the unique risks of artificial intelligence (AI) and agentic systems.  This collaborative initiative builds on the globally recognised CIS Critical Security Controls® (CIS Controls®), extending its principles into AI environments where autonomous decision‑making, tool and API access, and automated threats introduce new challenges. The intent of the partnership includes initially developing two CIS Controls companion guides: one for AI Agent Environments, which will focus on securing the agent system lifecycle; the other for Model Context Protocol (MCP) environments. Adopt AI responsibly and securely MCP environments introduce unique risks, including credential exposure, ungoverned local execution, unapproved third‑party connections, and uncontrolled data flows between models and tools. Together, these guides will provide targeted safeguards for organisations operating in environments where MCP agents, tools, and registries interact dynamically with enterprise systems.  “AI presents both tremendous opportunities and significant risks,” said Curtis Dukes, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security Best Practices at CIS. “By partnering with Astrix and Cequence, we are ensuring that organisations have the tools they need to adopt AI responsibly and securely.”  AI ecosystems Astrix’s contribution centres on securing AI agents, MCP servers, and the Non‑Human Identities (NHIs), such as API keys, service accounts, and OAuth tokens, that link them to critical systems.  “AI agents and the non‑human identities that power them bring great potential but also new risks,” said Jonathan Sander, Field CTO of Astrix Security. “Our focus is helping enterprises discover, secure, and deploy AI agents responsibly, with the confidence to scale. Through this partnership, we’re providing clear, practical guidance to keep AI ecosystems safe so organisations can innovate with confidence.”  API security experience Cequence brings years of enterprise application and API security experience to agentic AI enablement and security. “As organisations embrace agentic AI, trust hinges on visibility, governance, and control over what those agents can see and do to your applications and data,” said Ameya Talwalkar, CEO of Cequence Security. “Security is strongest through collaboration, and this partnership gives organisations clear guidance to adopt AI safely and securely.”  How the partnership supports organisations  Extends trusted cybersecurity frameworks into AI environments, addressing risks from autonomous systems and integrations.  Delivers clear, prioritised safeguards that guide enterprises toward secure and responsible AI adoption.  Resilience across the AI ecosystem Combines expertise across standards, API security, and application defence to provide comprehensive protection. The new guidance is scheduled for release in early 2026, accompanied by workshops, webinars, and supporting resources delivered jointly by CIS, Astrix, and Cequence. Together, the organisations aim to help enterprises translate recommendations into practice while building a stronger foundation of trust, transparency, and resilience across the AI ecosystem. By working from a shared framework, enterprises, vendors, and security leaders can align on a common language for securing AI environments.

Cequence Security, a pioneer in application security, unveiled the Cequence AI Gateway, a powerful new solution enabling enterprises to take full advantage of the productivity gains promised by agentic AI. Bridging the gap between AI agents and enterprise applications, the AI Gateway enables instant connectivity with the guardrails enterprises need to stay in control.         Power of artificial intelligence Enterprises, eager to embrace the power of artificial intelligence (AI), have lacked the tools needed Enterprises, eager to embrace the power of artificial intelligence (AI), have lacked the tools needed to do so safely and efficiently at scale. For CISOs and security-first engineering pioneers, the rush to expose applications to agentic AI is outpacing guardrails such as those outlined by the EU AI Act and Anthropic’s ASL. CIOs are understandably concerned about the opportunity cost incurred by having to up-skill needed developers. At the same time, they want a solution that accelerates ROI by avoiding insecure, one-off prototypes in favor of a scalable, enterprise-grade solution. Cequence AI Gateway Cequence AI Gateway is that missing layer, instantly connecting AI agents to enterprise applications and APIs using emerging standards like the Model Context Protocol (MCP) while enforcing real-time policies that prevent abuse, protect data, and ensure AI acts within bounds. “The race to adopt agentic AI in enterprises is well underway, but the foundation to support it is immature," said Ameya Talwalkar, CEO and co-founder of Cequence Security. “This has left organisations backed into a corner, connecting AI agents to critical systems without sufficient security, oversight, or context.” “With the combination of our Unified API Protection platform and the new AI Gateway, Cequence delivers both sides of the equation: open, seamless access for AI agents, and the enterprise-grade security, governance, and visibility that leaders need to trust this next wave of automation.” Cequence AI Gateway advantages Following are the advantages of Cequence AI Gateway: AI Easy Button – AI Gateway converts any API into an MCP-compatible endpoint, enabling agentic AI access to any internal, external, or SaaS application in minutes, without coding. Avoids time and costs associated with up-skilling, coding, QA, integration, hosting, and ongoing management. No need to update the solution when new protocol versions emerge, as the AI Gateway handles this for users. End-to-End Authentication and Authorisation – OAuth 2.0 IdP support ensures appropriate identity-based access to systems and data, preventing unauthorised AI agent access. Existing solutions lack seamless integration with enterprise IdPs. Monitoring and Visibility of AI Interactions – Real-time visibility into AI-API traffic with full audit logging enables detailed tracking of agent and user behaviour, what applications are being accessed, and which API calls are being made via agents. Enterprise-Ready – Unlike alternatives, Cequence is designed for the enterprise, offering a SaaS solution with continuous environment monitoring and discrete pre-prod/prod modes. Integrates with existing infrastructure without disruption. Cequence Unified API Protection The combination of AI Gateway and UAP allows Cequence customers to stop agent-fuelled attacks Today, the Cequence Unified API Protection (UAP) platform is used by a broad spectrum of the world’s largest organisations to monitor and secure their applications and APIs. The combination of AI Gateway and UAP allows Cequence customers to stop agent-fuelled attacks, fraud, and abuse such as the high-profile incidents recently publicised in the news. “Cequence doesn’t just secure applications and APIs. They enable entirely new business models,” said Amir Sarhangi, CEO and co-founder of Skyfire, creators of the KYAPay open payment and identity protocol for AI Agents. Critical infrastructure “The AI Gateway is critical infrastructure that brings agentic AI into the real world by making secure, compliant access to enterprise APIs scalable and seamless. Cequence is a trusted partner because they know how to protect real-time interactions without slowing innovation,” continued Amir Sarhangi. “It's a critical component as we build the infrastructure that gives AI agents everything they need to transact, including verified identity, real-time micropayments, and instant monetisation." AI Gateway value Early adopters have been quick to recognise AI Gateway value. “We were trying to enable a complex, customer-facing agentic application experience, a process we thought would take months,” said an early enterprise customer. “With Cequence AI Gateway, we went from ‘stalled’ to ‘operational’ in under 48 hours. Now, customers can ask natural language questions and get real-time answers, reducing costly support interactions. It solves a real business problem faster and more safely than we thought possible.” Natural evolution “This launch is a natural evolution of our Unified API Protection platform,” said Shreyans Mehta, CTO and co-founder at Cequence Security. “We’ve engineered the AI Gateway to transform any application or API into an MCP-compatible endpoint, with real-time enforcement policies baked in. It’s built to meet developers where they are, while giving security teams the control they need. It’s not just about enabling agentic AI; it’s about enabling it responsibly at scale.” Mehta added: “Building this requires deep knowledge of how APIs are structured, used, and abused at scale. That’s why Cequence is uniquely positioned to enable the next generation of intelligence automation responsibly.” Enabling agentic AI Enabling agentic AI starts at the API layer, and that’s where Cequence leads Enabling agentic AI starts at the API layer, and that’s where Cequence leads. Cequence was built to solve difficult API security challenges in real time, at scale. While others are still trying to figure out how to safely expose APIs to agentic AI, Cequence brings years of enterprise experience to a problem that demands security-first thinking. It’s designed by the same team that protects over 10 billion API interactions daily, and is built to handle the performance, governance, and authentication challenges unique to this new era of AI automation.

Cequence Security, a pioneer in API security and bot management, announces significant enhancements to its Unified API Protection (UAP) platform to deliver the industry’s first comprehensive security solution for agentic AI development, usage, and connectivity. This enhancement empowers organisations to secure every AI agent interaction, regardless of the development framework. By implementing robust guardrails, the solution protects both enterprise-hosted AI applications and external AI APIs, preventing sensitive data exfiltration through business logic abuse and ensuring regulatory compliance. Ensuring regulatory compliance There is no AI without APIs, and the rapid growth of agentic AI applications has amplified concerns about securing sensitive data during their interactions. These AI-driven exchanges can inadvertently expose internal systems, create significant vulnerabilities, and jeopardise valuable data assets. This new layer of security enables customers to detect and prevent AI bots such as ChatGPT Recognising this critical challenge, Cequence has expanded its UAP platform, introducing an enhanced security layer to govern interactions between AI agents and backend services specifically. This new layer of security enables customers to detect and prevent AI bots, such as ChatGPT from OpenAI and Perplexity from harvesting organisational data.  Unidentified user agents Internal telemetry across Global 2000 deployments shows that the overwhelming majority of AI-related bot traffic, nearly 88%, originates from large language model infrastructure, with most requests obfuscated behind generic or unidentified user agents. Less than 4% of this traffic is transparently attributed to bots like GPTBot or Gemini. Cequence’s ability to detect and govern this traffic in real time, despite the lack of clear identifiers, reinforces the platform’s unmatched readiness for securing agentic AI in the wild. External AI harvesting attempts Key enhancements to Cequence’s UAP platform include: Block unauthorised AI data harvesting: Understanding that external AI often seeks to learn by broadly collecting data without obtaining permission, Cequence provides organisations with the critical capability to manage which AI, if any, can interact with their proprietary information. Detect and prevent sensitive data exposure: Empowers organisations to effectively detect and prevent sensitive data exposure across all forms of agentic AI. This includes safeguarding against external AI harvesting attempts and securing data within internal AI applications. The platform's intelligent analysis automatically differentiates between legitimate data access during normal application usage and anomalous activities signalling sensitive data exfiltration, ensuring comprehensive protection against AI-related data loss. Discover and manage shadow AI: Automatically discovers and classifies APIs from agentic AI tools like Microsoft Copilot and Salesforce Agentforce, presenting a unified view alongside customers’ internal and third-party APIs. This comprehensive visibility empowers organisations to easily manage these interactions and effectively detect and block sensitive data leaks, whether from external AI harvesting or internal AI usage. Seamless integration: Integrates easily into DevOps frameworks for discovering internal AI applications and generates OpenAPI specifications that detail API schemas and security mechanisms, including strong authentication and security policies. Cequence delivers powerful protection without relying on third-party tools, while seamlessly integrating with the customer’s existing cybersecurity ecosystem. This simplifies management and security enforcement. Enterprise software applications "Gartner® predicts that by 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, up from less than 1% in 2024, enabling 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously. We’ve taken immediate action to extend our market-renowned API security and bot management capabilities," said Ameya Talwalkar, CEO of Cequence. Ameya Talwalkar adds, "Agentic AI introduces a new layer of complexity, where every agent behaves like a bidirectional API. That’s our wheelhouse. Our platform helps organisations embrace innovation at scale without sacrificing governance, compliance, or control." These extended capabilities will be generally available in June.