AI Security: Gerald Auger on Shadow AI, Non Human Identities, and AI Defense

AI is moving faster than policy, training, and many traditional controls were designed to handle. 

In this episode of ClearTech Loop, Jo Peterson talks with Gerald Auger, Chief Content Creator of Simply Cyber, about shadow AI, non human identities, over-permissioned agents, and what AI defense means when AI systems can act at machine speed. 

Gerald brings the educator, GRC, and practitioner-community lens to the conversation. His take is practical: organizations probably cannot put AI back in the bottle, so they need to educate users, provide approved tools, bring agents into identity governance, and start treating AI governance like a real security discipline.  

What You’ll Hear in This Episode 

Jo and Gerald discuss: 

• Why shadow AI is a problem for IT, security, and the organization  
• How AI is becoming easier to use inside everyday SaaS tools  
• Why sensitive data in public AI tools creates a visibility gap  
• Why user education has to be part of AI security  
• How non human identities and AI agents create new permissioning risks  
• Why Gerald thinks organizations may need a “manager in the loop”  
• What AI defense means when AI systems can act quickly and at scale  

Key Insight 

AI governance is becoming its own discipline. 

Gerald’s point is not that organizations can stop AI adoption. It is that they need to build around it with education, approved tools, segmented environments, identity controls, better detection, and practical guardrails before “just let it run” becomes the strategy. Which, respectfully, is not a strategy. It is a group project with consequences. 

Timestamps 

00:00 Introduction to Gerald Auger 
00:30 Gerald’s background in cybersecurity, education, and Simply Cyber 
01:38 Shadow AI as an IT, security, and organizational issue 
03:00 Why public AI tools create data visibility risk 
04:40 Why organizations have to “ride the lightning” 
06:46 Jo on the missing layer of AI security training 
07:13 AI inside everyday tools and emerging attacker behavior 
08:58 Non human identities and over-permissioned agents 
12:30 AI Wrangler or Manager in the Loop? 
13:12 What AI defense means in practice 
15:46 AI Gone Wild and closing thoughts 

Guest Bio 

Gerald Auger, PhD, is Chief Content Creator of Simply Cyber. He is a cybersecurity educator, GRC practitioner, community builder, and creator of the Simply Cyber Daily Cyber Threat Brief. 

He has a PhD in Cyber Operations from Dakota State University and teaches cybersecurity at The Citadel. Through Simply Cyber, Gerald helps cybersecurity professionals build careers through practical education, daily threat briefings, and practitioner-first community content.  

Resources 

• Simply Cyber Academy: The Definitive GRC Analyst Program https://academy.simplycyber.io/p/the-definitive-grc-analyst-program 
• Flashlight in a Dark Room: A Grounded Theory Study on Information Security Management at Small Healthcare Provider Organizations by Gerald Auger
  https://scholar.dsu.edu/theses/329/ 
• Subscribe to ClearTech Loop on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ClearTechResearch/  

Follow 

Follow ClearTech Loop for more conversations on AI security, cybersecurity leadership, AI governance, cloud security, GRC, risk, and enterprise technology strategy. 

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