Attacks no longer pause for an operator to type the next command. SimSpace Field CISO and Head of Solution Engineering Jason Rivera, whose background spans the US Army, NSA, Deloitte, and CrowdStrike, describes autonomous cyber threats that run phishing campaigns continuously, find network paths by automated discovery, and change malware behavior mid-intrusion. Speaking with Help Net Security, he argues the practical consequence for defenders is a move away from working alerts reactively toward machine-guided response. That shift has to be rehearsed rather than assumed. Agentic AI security holds up only when teams have practiced against adversary emulation moving at machine speed, and AI red teaming shows where detection and response break down before an autonomous attacker finds the same gap.
