Zscaler Acquires Symmetry Systems to Map & Secure AI Agents

When enterprises started treating AI agents as a “new form of labour” they unwittingly plugged in autonomous privileged insiders across their sensitive stack. 

This agentic backdrop sets the scene for Zscaler’s decision, as it announces plans to acquire Symmetry Systems to strengthen enterprise AI security and accelerate the evolution of Zero Trust architecture. 

Zscaler will gain deeper visibility into how AI agents, applications and enterprise data interact across increasingly complex digital environments – this foundational visibility is key to governance.  

The cybersecurity giant says that Symmetry Systems’ access graph technology that maps relationships between human and non-human identities, applications and data sources will become a foundational layer within the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform. 

Access graphs are hence crucial for security teams to understand how AI agents communicate and what resources they access.

“As enterprises rapidly adopt AI, the old playbook for governing access built around users and directories cannot scale to millions of AI agents,” says Jay Chaudhry, Chairman and CEO of Zscaler. 

“With Symmetry Systems, we are adding the access graph that maps how every identity, application and data source connects across the enterprise. 

“This foundational visibility is what Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange will use to govern agent-to-application and agent-to-agent communication at scale, giving customers the actionable control they need to safely embrace AI.”

The cyber challenges of agentic AI 

Traditional identity management systems were designed around human users who operate within relatively stable groups and permission structures. 

These rules can be thrown out the window when dealing with AI agents that often use temporary identities, inherited permissions and automated workflows that move across multiple systems in real time.

To say this makes things complicated is an understatement, as organisations deploy larger volumes of AI-driven tools, security teams are struggling to maintain visibility into who or what is accessing sensitive data.

Symmetry Systems addresses this challenge by analysing access logs from SaaS applications, cloud services, AI systems and enterprise data stores. 

Using AI-powered correlation, this data is used to build an access graph that reveals how identities and data interact.

When integrated with Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange, the technology will allow enterprises to create dynamic policies that govern how AI agents access information and communicate with one another.

New Zero Trust capabilities for enterprise AI security

Post acquisition, Zscaler customers will gain improved visibility into what AI agents can access, what they have already accessed and why specific actions were triggered.

Thereby, security teams can easily create least-privilege access policies based on real-world usage patterns rather than static permissions – reducing unnecessary access rights and limiting potential exposure.

With the help of an end-to-end data lineage tracking, businesses will be able to trace “any piece of data an AI agent touches”, regardless of whether it is through agents, sub-agents and connected tools – simplifying compliance reviews and investigations.

The combined platform is highly capable at supporting real-time anomaly detection.

With the access graph already mapped, if and when any suspicious AI agent activity is identified, Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange will be able to trigger automated responses to contain threats before they spread further across the network.

There is a clear blast radius, which is calculated within seconds once an agent or system is compromised, what other systems are at risk and may follow. 

Symmetry Systems CEO Mohit Tiwari said the acquisition reflects a broader shift in enterprise cybersecurity strategy as AI adoption accelerates.

“Symmetry Systems’ mission is deep security research that earns real customer love. Zscaler is an inspiration on both counts,” Mohit says. 

“We believe the dominant security platforms of the AI era will govern how information flows between identities across zero-trust networks. 

“As AI disintermediates applications, endpoints and traditional network boundaries, identities and data become the new control plane for enterprise security. 

“In this world, legacy security models centred on endpoints, applications or perimeter networks increasingly operate at the wrong layer of abstraction. 

“Together, Symmetry Systems and Zscaler are building the information flow network for the age of AI.”