Top security teams use AI agents, says Hack The Box

Most of the top security teams are using AI agents, employing them to support human activity rather than replace it, according to Hack The Box.

The latest three-year benchmark data from the cyber readiness platform finds disproportionate use of agents among many of the strongest-performing teams.

More than two-thirds (68%) of the top 25 teams having an AI agent, although AI agents represented just 2.7% of registered accounts.

Those agents accounted for 4.2% of submitted flags and 4.6% of points awarded.

Across all active teams in the research, AI-augmented teams recorded a 3.2 times solve-rate advantage; an advantage that narrowed to 1.69 times among the top 5%, while the speed advantage grew.

While AI-augmented teams completed challenges three to four times faster, with the speed advantage increasing among the strongest operators, the strongest human team completed all 36 challenges compared with 32 for the strongest AI team.

"AI therefore creates the greatest value when it is directed by people who already understand the problem. It can compress research, coding, troubleshooting, and first- pass analysis. The operator still has to choose the path, challenge weak output, and decide whether the result is valid," the researchers said.