SANS Brings AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, and Anthropic Together to Address Autonomous Agents in Cloud Security
Now in its fifth year, the Cloud Security Exchange combines with CloudSecNext Summit for the first time, August 17-18, 2026, in San Francisco.
Bethesda, MD, July 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- An AI agent can authenticate, run a multi-step workflow, and make a decision across a company's cloud infrastructure in the time it takes a security analyst to open a single ticket. AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft are each making a version of the same point in their sessions at SANS's Cloud Security Exchange this August: identity systems, detection pipelines, and response processes were built for human investigators, not autonomous agents acting on their own.
"Steal an AI agent's credentials and you inherit everything it can touch," said Rob T. Lee, Chief AI Officer and Chief of Research at SANS Institute. "There's no break-in to detect. It's a valid login, and we're still running quarterly access reviews on a workforce that makes a thousand decisions a minute (the math there is not close). Right now, the companies selling the cars are also writing the traffic laws: terms of service they can change whenever they want. Closing the technical gap and deciding who actually gets to set the rules are the same conversation."
That governance question is what SANS Institute built this year's Cloud Security Exchange to work through, on a single stage with the CloudSecNext Summit for the first time. The two-day Summit is co-chaired by Frank Kim and Eric Johnson, followed by optional add-on training courses August 19-23 for attendees who want to put the Summit's techniques directly to work in their own environments.
"As co-chair, I want people leaving with something they can put to use Monday morning," said Kim, SANS Fellow and Curriculum Lead for the Cloud Security and Cybersecurity Leadership programs at SANS Institute. "Every cohort I teach has someone running agentic workloads already, and most of them are learning how to contain one on the fly. This year's sessions are built around that: less theory, more walking through what containment and response actually look like when the thing acting is a machine."
AWS's Gee Rittenhouse and Puma Security's Eric Johnson will walk through detection and response at machine speed. Microsoft's Wesley Kuzma and SANS's Chris Cochran will look at what changes when machines, not humans, make the decisions, and Anthropic's Jason Clinton joins them for a featured discussion, before a closing fireside chat on five years of cloud security evolution. A Google Cloud speaker rounds out the day's lineup.
The Summit takes place at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Downtown SOMA, 50 Third Street, with sessions also available online. As a thank you to the community, SANS is offering Summit passes for just $50 with promo code Cloud_Promo50 through Friday, July 24.
Registration and the full agenda are available at sans.org/cyber-security-training-events/cloud-security-exchange-summit-2026.
About SANS
The SANS Institute was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. Today, SANS is the most trusted and, by far, the largest provider of cybersecurity training and certification to professionals in government and commercial institutions worldwide. Renowned SANS instructors teach more than 85 courses at in-person and virtual cybersecurity events and OnDemand. GIAC, an affiliate of the SANS Institute, validates practitioner skills through more than 50 hands-on technical certifications in cybersecurity. The SANS Technology Institute, a regionally accredited independent subsidiary, offers master’s and bachelor’s degrees, graduate certificates, and an undergraduate certificate in cybersecurity. SANS also delivers a wide variety of free resources to the InfoSec community, including consensus projects, research reports, webcasts, podcasts, and newsletters; it also operates the Internet's early warning system, the Internet Storm Center. At the heart of SANS are the many security practitioners representing varied global organizations, from corporations to universities, working together to support and educate the global information security community. www.sans.org
Jenn Elston SANS Institute 301-654-7267 jelston@sans.org
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