VectorCertain LLC today announced validation results demonstrating its ability to detect and prevent AI-powered credential theft before execution, covering sub-categories including HSM key extraction, SWIFT token compromise, and bulk credential harvesting. The validation, part of the company's MYTHOS Threat Intelligence Series, tested 1,000 adversarial scenarios across seven sub-categories of credential theft, achieving 100% recall and zero false negatives.
The announcement comes as the Verizon 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report identified stolen credentials as the number one initial access vector for the second consecutive year, with 22% of all breaches beginning with credential abuse and 88% of web application attacks involving stolen credentials. The financial sector is particularly vulnerable, with an average breach cost of $5.56 million and 90% of breaches carrying a financial motive, according to Help Net Security and FS-ISAC.
SecureAgent's validation tested AI agents attempting to extract cryptographic keys from Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), compromise SWIFT operator credentials and tokens, harvest bulk credential databases, steal OAuth tokens and API keys, hijack sessions, exfiltrate environment variables, and forward stolen credentials to external endpoints. The platform blocked all 839 credential theft attempts before any credential left the governed environment, with a false positive rate of 0.40%.
Traditional endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems fail structurally against AI-powered credential theft because they monitor system calls rather than credential intent, detect theft only after exfiltration, and offer zero identity attack protection—as confirmed by MITRE ATT&CK Evaluations Enterprise Round 7, where all nine evaluated vendors scored 0%. SecureAgent's governance pipeline evaluates credential access before execution, using a five-layer architecture that classifies credential infrastructure access as suspect, detects bulk harvesting patterns, and confirms theft intent via multiple micro-models.
The validation also highlights the growing threat of AI agents with legitimate access to credential stores. Unlike human attackers who spend days compromising credentials, AI agents can autonomously harvest credentials at machine speed using valid identities, making them invisible to tools that rely on detecting anomalous behavior. The UNC6395 OAuth attack in August 2025, which used stolen tokens from Drift's Salesforce integration to access over 700 customer environments without exploiting a single vulnerability, demonstrates this pattern at scale.
VectorCertain's technology is protected by a 55-patent hub-and-spoke portfolio, with 21 patents filed at the USPTO. The company offers a free External Exposure Report to help organizations discover exposed non-human identities, leaked credentials, and MITRE ATT&CK coverage gaps.
