The Dark Side of AI Access: Why Expired Authorizations Still Threaten Security

Read full article from Okta here: https://www.okta.com/blog/ai/ai-agent-security-when-authorization-outlives-intent/?utm_source=nhimg

In August 2025, one of the largest SaaS-to-SaaS breaches in recent history unfolded — quietly, without ransomware, defacement, or noise. Attackers exploited stale OAuth tokens from Salesloft Drift, a marketing automation platform integrating Drift’s AI chat with enterprise tools like Salesforce and Google Workspace. Over 700 organizations were compromised, exposing business contacts, API keys, and customer data.

The breach revealed a deeper truth about identity management in the age of AI: authorization often outlives intent. AI agents don’t log off. Their credentials persist for months — forgotten, valid, and dangerously alive. These long-lived tokens are now one of the most underestimated risks in cloud security.

The fix is architectural. Authorization must evolve from static credentials to short-lived, context-aware, and continuously renewed access. Durable trust must carry built-in expiration — not indefinite permission.

The Breach That Changed the Conversation

Between March and June 2025, attackers gained access to Salesloft’s GitHub repositories, implanted malicious workflows, and infiltrated Drift’s AWS environment. From there, they exfiltrated OAuth tokens tied to customer integrations with services like Salesforce, Cloudflare, and Palo Alto Networks.

The attack didn’t exploit a vulnerability — it exploited persistence. The stolen tokens, many issued months earlier, remained valid. When used in August, they passed authentication seamlessly. Every API call looked legitimate because, technically, it was.

This was authorization drift in action: credentials that outlive the purpose they were created for. And it’s not rare — 51% of organizations lack a process to revoke old machine credentials, and non-human identities now outnumber humans 144 to 1. Every forgotten token extends the enterprise attack surface indefinitely.

Authorization Drift: A Hidden Risk in Plain Sight

Authorization drift occurs when access remains valid beyond its intended purpose. Unlike human sessions, AI agents run continuously — performing data processing, model training, or workflow automation for days or weeks. Yet, most IAM systems still assume a login/logout pattern.

This assumption creates dangerous gaps:

• Credentials issued for temporary integrations linger long after completion.
• Tokens stay valid even after the employee or agent that used them is gone.
• Revocation depends on manual cleanup, which rarely happens on time.

According to OWASP’s NHI7 report, credentials remain active an average of 47 days after they’re no longer needed. That’s nearly two months of invisible exposure.

The Salesloft–Drift breach proved that long-lived authorization equals long-lived risk. Attackers didn’t need exploits — they just waited.

From Reactive to Lifecycle-Aware Authorization

AI agents have redefined access patterns. They operate asynchronously, autonomously, and continuously — what the OpenID Foundation calls “durable delegated authority.” To secure these systems, IAM must evolve beyond traditional, static models.

Modern authorization must:

1. Issue delegated identities purpose-built for agents — separate from user credentials.
2. Continuously renew or revoke credentials as context changes.
3. De-provision instantly across all systems when a task ends or risk appears.
4. Validate intent at runtime, not just at issuance.

This approach turns authorization into a living trust fabric, where access continuously aligns with purpose, context, and compliance.

The Regulatory Push: Proof of Authorization in Real Time

The EU AI Act (Article 14), effective August 2, 2026, will require organizations to demonstrate that every AI-driven action was authorized at the time it occurred. Penalties reach €35 million or 7% of global revenue.

In the U.S., frameworks such as FICAM and the Department of Justice’s Data Security Program Rule are moving in the same direction, demanding full lifecycle control over automated access.

Auditors are shifting the question from “Was the token valid?” to “Should it still have been valid?”

Organizations that can’t prove intent-aligned access will face regulatory and operational consequences. Lifecycle authorization is becoming not just a best practice — but a compliance mandate.

The Path Forward: Lifecycle-Aware Authorization

To eliminate authorization drift, organizations must shift from static access control to real-time, lifecycle-driven authorization. Four principles define this model:

1. Durable Delegated Identity – Each AI agent receives a unique, auditable identity, separate from user accounts.
2. Continuously Renewable Authorization – Access automatically adjusts to context: task, role, environment, or policy.
3. Instant Cross-System De-Provisioning – Revoking a token in one system propagates instantly across all integrations.
4. Real-Time Validation – Every API call or operation revalidates against live policy conditions before execution.

This design ensures that authorization never outlives intent — the exact inverse of what caused the Salesloft–Drift breach.

Okta and Auth0: Operationalizing the Model

Modern IAM platforms are already implementing lifecycle-aware authorization frameworks that support autonomous systems at scale:

• Okta AI Agent Lifecycle Management (LCM)
  Registers AI agents as distinct non-human identities with governed delegation chains. Using Okta Identity Governance and Privileged Access, agents receive only the access required for specific tasks — automatically revoked once those tasks end.
• Auth0 Token Vault and Fine-Grained Authorization (FGA)
  Issues short-lived, context-bound tokens tied to specific operations. Auth0 FGA provides real-time, policy-based decisioning, ensuring access remains aligned with current context. For asynchronous workloads, CIBA (Client-Initiated Backchannel Authentication) validates delegation before every action.
• Okta Identity Security Fabric
  Ensures instant credential revocation across the SaaS ecosystem using shared signals and open standards like DPoP (RFC 9449). Sub-second propagation guarantees no stale tokens remain, while detailed logs maintain full audit visibility.

The Bottom Line

AI agents now outnumber humans in enterprise networks by more than 100 to 1. Yet, most organizations still rely on static, long-lived credentials that were never designed for autonomous systems.

The Salesloft–Drift breach and NIST’s 2025 Agent Hijacking study highlight the same pattern: valid tokens left behind, unrevoked and exploitable. The problem isn’t that AI agents act independently — it’s that our access controls assume they don’t.

Lifecycle-aware authorization changes that paradigm.

• Shared credentials → become delegated agent identities
• Static tokens → become context-expiring credentials
• Manual cleanup → becomes instant de-provisioning
• Fixed trust → becomes dynamic, continuous validation

This is more than a patch — it’s a redefinition of IAM for the autonomous era. Authorization is no longer a one-time event; it’s a living process that evolves with intent.

When authorization outlives intent, risk becomes inevitable. When authorization adapts to intent, security becomes continuous.