Businesses are increasingly pressured by competitive markets and investors to leverage AI productivity within their processes and operations. According to Cisco, 83% of IT leaders agree that business units are deploying agents faster than security teams can support.
Regardless of the speed at which businesses implement agentic AI, employees are using agents often without explicit IT approval and therefore granting unvetted agents access to company credentials. This phenomenon is also known as “shadow AI.”
What are the AI security risks today?
Without the proper security measures, Agentic AI can introduce serious vulnerabilities:
Over-scoped access: AI agents may access systems, information, credentials, and data not explicitly authorized by the company or users.
Unapproved actions: Over-scoped access and permissions can grant agents the ability to complete unapproved actions, potentially interrupting operations, exposing business information, or damaging company reputation.
Data leakage: Sensitive information, like plaintext credentials, can be shared with an AI provider who does not have the capabilities to effectively secure this information, leading to a potential data breach.
What companies and organizations need
Organizations need a way to benefit from AI agent productivity while protecting sensitive company information from data leaks and business ecosystems from unauthorized access.
Bitwarden and agentic AI security
Bitwarden delivers security solutions that empower businesses and individuals with end-to-end encrypted credential access across human, machine, and non-human identities like AI agents.
Bitwarden Secrets Manager - Provision AI agent access to pre-determined development secrets to use in scripts and CI/CD pipelines.
Bitwarden Access Intelligence - Uncover shadow AI. Identify AI applications being used within the organization and by whom.
Agent Access SDK - Enable just-in-time, human-in-the-loop credential access to approved agents with this development toolkit.
Bitwarden MCP server - Access, generate, retrieve, and manage passwords via self-hosted AI assistants while maintaining zero-knowledge encryption.
Bitwarden Secrets Manager: Secure your AI-enabled development workflows
Without a dedicated Secrets Manager, AI agents can gain access to hardcoded secrets or secrets in plaintext .env files, leading to data breaches and unauthorized agent access to organization ecosystems.
With Bitwarden Secrets Manager, engineering and DevOps can replace hard coded, plain text secrets in code with end-to-end encrypted secrets stored in a dedicated vault and scoped machine-based access control. Bitwarden Secrets Manager enables you to securely and easily share secrets across users and machines and audit all access operations to ensure secrets are safe from exposure.
When to use Secrets Manager
Development teams use Bitwarden Secrets Manager in engineering workflows where AI agents require recurring secure access to credentials to execute scripts, pipelines, and backend services.
What makes Bitwarden different
Open source
Unlimited secret storage
End-to-end encryption
Predictable pricing
Get started: Free 7-day business trial
Bitwarden Access Intelligence: Identify shadow AI across the organization
In the wake of agentic AI and its accelerated adoption, AI agents are regularly being leveraged throughout organizations without IT knowledge or approval. Bitwarden Access Intelligence helps IT and security teams uncover shadow AI and close credential-related security vulnerabilities.
When to use Access Intelligence
IT teams use Bitwarden Access Intelligence to identify AI applications being used within the organization and by who. They can close security vulnerabilities by triggering automated alerts to end users with at-risk passwords associated with these applications.
What makes Bitwarden different
Application-centric
Prioritize critical applications
Guided remediation
Get started: Free 7-day business trial
Agent Access SDK: Grant end-to-end encrypted agent access to credentials
AI agents are increasingly gaining access to unapproved credentials without human knowledge, storing those credentials in LLM chat history, and performing unapproved actions. The Agent Access SDK by Bitwarden enables agents to securely access credentials with designated human oversight and robust end-to-end encryption, helping ensure passwords are never exposed or used without explicit authorization.
When to use Agent Access SDK
Users leverage the Agent Access SDK in common agentic AI workflows where agents require secure access to a specific credential stored in a password manager to execute a one-time task. The AI agent in this case does not see the vault contents in plain text, but rather credentials are injected into their workflow execution.
What makes Bitwarden different
Open standard for agentic AI credential access
Just-in-time access
Human-in-the-loop approvals
End-to-end encrypted communications
Get started: Use the SDK for free
Note: The Agent Access SDK is currency in alpha mode for testing and exploration. It is recommended that users leverage sample data when testing and avoid production information and environments at this stage.
Bitwarden MCP server: Manage Bitwarden with AI assistants
The Bitwarden MCP server enables business and individuals users to leverage the productivity of AI agents and securely manage the contents and administration of their password vault with simple commands.
When to use MCP server
Individual user: AI agent retrieves, generates, and manages Bitwarden vault contents based on individual user directions like unlocking the Bitwarden vault, retrieving a password or TOTP code, or editing login items.
Business user: AI agent is used by IT admin to orchestrate password management for their company like turning on an enterprise policy, confirming a new user, or retrieving subscription details.
What makes Bitwarden different
Context aware command parsing
Local-first architecture which maintains zero-knowledge encryption
Get started: Test the server
Note: MCP servers are on the frontier of the AI wave, which when not explored carefully, can be risky. Users of the Bitwarden MCP server are encouraged to keep security and care in mind. It is strongly recommended to leverage a local self-hosted LLM option when using the MCP server.
Bitwarden solutions for secure AI agents
Bitwarden Secrets Manager | Bitwarden Password Manager and Access Intelligence | Bitwarden Password Manager and MCP server | Agent Access SDK |
|---|---|---|---|
Provision AI agent access to pre-determined development secrets to use in scripts and CI/CD pipelines. | Identify AI applications being used within the organization and by who. Close security vulnerabilities by triggering automated alerts to end users. | Access, generate, retrieve, and manage passwords via self-hosted AI assistants while maintaining zero-knowledge encryption. | Enable just-in-time, human-in-the-loop credential access to approved agents with this development toolkit. |
Agentic AI credential security all from one provider
Begin your journey and secure AI workflows with end-to-end encryption today! Sign up for a free 7-day Bitwarden enterprise trial and immediately get access to:
Secrets management
Password management
Passkey management
Shadow IT and AI detection
Open source SDKs and MCP server