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Articles by Rick Doten
AI Agent Accountability Has Gone to the Dogs
AI Agent Accountability Has Gone to the Dogs 11:17 I have said many times on podcasts and in articles that AI agents can't be held accountable for their actions. The incident of OpenAI breaking into Hugging Face is a perfect example: the agent was given a goal, so it discovered a way to more effectively achieve that goal by breaking out of its sandbox and into the source that had the answers it needed.
Beyond Zero: Enterprise security for the AI era
Enterprise security is transitioning from human-speed security to high-frequency, AI-mediated defense. This new model is called Beyond Zero, and the fundamental concepts for the new architecture are laid out in this article. Beyond Zero allows for a contextual, risk-based, resource-level authorization model to run at machine speed, securing both humans and agents without overburdening users. The Beyond Zero model has the following key features: Resource/action-based security.
Marginal Value Theorem as a Framework for Human Interaction with AI
Marginal Value Theorem as a Framework for Human Interaction with AI 6:16 In the 1970s, an ecologist observed that an animal foraging for food would move from one patch to another without taking all the berries, nuts, or grass in the previous patch. He determined the reason was the value of return from the first patch diminished, and the effort to move to another patch without finishing the first yielded greater value. This is the "low hanging fruit" analogy.
AI Agents Don't Have to Follow Directions
AI Agents Don't Have to Follow Directions 6:16 Many organizations block ZIP files in email attachments because the old antivirus scanners couldn't read them, and adversaries could get malicious files past the filters by zipping them up. So, when employees need to receive a legitimate ZIP file, they told the sender to change the extension from .zip to .abc. That would get past the filter, and they would then change the extension back to .zip to open it up.
Frozen in the Middle: The AI Bottleneck
Frozen in the Middle: The AI Bottleneck 6:19 I talk to a lot of organizations that are being pressured from their board or upper leadership to implement AI for fear of getting left behind. These organizations have staff who are eager to use more and different AI tools than those sanctioned by the company. So, where is the disconnect for the leadership's command for innovation, employees taking ownership, and higher productivity from the staff?
The Efficiency Trap: How AI Leads to Increased Work, Human Disconnection
The Efficiency Trap: How AI Leads to Increased Work, Human Disconnection 6:12 In February 2026, a paper was published in Harvard Business Review by Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqui Maggie Ye that described the results of an eight-month study of how generative AI changed work habits at a mid-sized U.S.-based technology firm.
Agent Observability Shouldn't Just Be About Vulnerabilities
Agent Observability Shouldn't Just Be About Vulnerabilities 6:15 Business leadership and boards are pushing for the use of AI and expecting to see ROI. CISOs are looking at agent monitoring tools that tell them about vulnerabilities, not business value.
Leadership in the Age of AI
Leadership in the Age of AI 4:25 Last week, I posted an article about how AI makes us more efficient but actually makes us work more. This week, I'm going to talk about how we as people leaders will need to evolve how we manage people and the AI agents that our employees oversee as agents become commonplace in work. For millennia, human leadership has been about delegating tasks to people and orchestrating them towards a unified goal. Keeping them on task, on time, and accurate.
Getting a Tighter Grip on Third-Party AI Risk in Healthcare
26 minutes ago bankinfosecurity Former CISO Rick Doten on Critical Moves to Better Manage Vendor Risk Marianne Kolbasuk McGee (HealthInfoSec) • December 24, 2025 17 Minutes Third-party security threats are one of the most critical risks facing the healthcare sector. Increasing use of artificial intelligence by vendors adds a new layer of third-party concerns, said independent consultant Rick Doten, former CISO of a large managed healthcare firm.
Agentic AI and the Painted Fence Analogy
Agentic AI and the Painted Fence Analogy 4:57 This paper is a companion to our initial paper, From Principles to Relationships: Redesigning Ethics for AI's Alien Cognition, about how to apply an Ethics model to Agentic AI LLMs are like librarians, they have access to all the knowledge of the world, and are trained where it is, how to consume it, and how to articulate it back to a human. Librarians aren't experts in everything, don't know the context of why you are asking.
The Forgotten Details of Ransomware Response Plans
27 minutes ago bankinfosecurity Rick Doten, Healthplan CISO at Centene Corp., on Closing Critical Gaps Marianne Kolbasuk McGee (HealthInfoSec) • June 4, 2025 12 Minutes While healthcare organizations often know in general what they need to do in case they're faced with a ransomware attack, the devil is in the details of how comprehensive and well-rehearsed that incident preparedness plan is for optimal response, said Rick Doten, vice president and health plan CISO at Centene Corp.
The Arrival of Zero Trust: What Does it Mean?
2 days ago Rollan Roberts II was in the middle of announcing he was running to be president of the United States when his five-month pregnant wife collapsed. Resurfaced footage from 21 January shows the businessman declaring his candidacy, when Rebecca Lea Roberts collapses on the floor. She is later seen sitting on a chair as Mr Roberts continues his speech. Mr Roberts has announced that he will be standing as a Republican candidate for the 2024 election. Click here to sign up for our newsletters.
The Arrival of Zero Trust: What Does it Mean?
Current Issue Past Issues Topics September 16, 2022 Volume 20, issue 4 PDF A discussion with Michael Loftus, Andrew Vezina, Rick Doten, and Atefeh Mashatan It used to be that enterprise cybersecurity was all castle and moat. First, secure the perimeter and then, in terms of what went on inside that, "Trust, but verify." The perimeter, of course, was the corporate network. But what does that even mean at this point?
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