Proofpoint’s Big Bet: Securing the “Agentic Workspace” Before It Gets Messy

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6 days ago

Proofpoint just rolled out four major security innovations at its annual Protect 2025 conference, and they’re all aimed at one thing: protecting the “agentic workspace” where humans and AI work together. CEO Sumit Dhawan is betting big that organizations will need serious help navigating this new frontier before it turns into a security nightmare.

The company isn’t just throwing products at the wall here. They’re tackling what they see as the next evolution of human-centric security — except now they have to protect AI agents too.

The Problem Nobody Saw Coming

Here’s the thing about AI agents: they act like people. They click stuff, share information, and make decisions. That also means they can be tricked, manipulated, and compromised just like humans. Except AI operates at a scale and speed that makes human mistakes look quaint.

Cybercriminals figured this out fast. They’re now embedding malicious prompts in emails to mess with AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini. One bad prompt can make an AI assistant spill confidential data or provide completely wrong information to users.

As Dhawan put it: “The agentic workspace is here and one of the most profound shifts in terms of how work gets done.” Translation: this isn’t some future problem — it’s happening right now.

About Author

AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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