Signal & Trust

Security, identity & AI — without the noise

Practical perspectives on securing the enterprise as identities, copilots and autonomous agents increasingly operate side by side.

What I write about

Expect insights around:

AI Security & Governance

Securing AI applications, copilots and agents as organisations move from experimentation to production.

Identity & Access

How identity, authentication, Zero Trust and access governance are evolving in an AI-enabled enterprise.

Agentic AI Security

Agent identity, permissions, tools, data access, lifecycle, monitoring and governance.

Data Security

Protecting sensitive information as AI changes how people and systems discover and use organisational data.

Enterprise AI Readiness

The security, governance and operating-model questions organisations should answer before scaling AI.

Microsoft Security

Practical observations across technologies such as Entra, Purview, Defender, Copilot and the wider Microsoft security ecosystem.

Lessons from the field

Reflections from projects, research, speaking engagements and conversations with security and technology practitioners.

Beyond the headlines

A lot of the AI conversation focuses on what we can build.

I'm equally interested in what happens after we build it.

Who owns an agent?
What identities and permissions does it have?
What data can it reach?
How do we know what it is doing?
What happens when hundreds — or thousands — of agents exist across an organisation?

And how do we introduce the governance needed to answer those questions without making security the reason innovation stops?

These are the kinds of questions I explore here.

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Past editions

Every edition of Signal & Trust is published here in full. The website is the home of the archive — LinkedIn is where it also circulates.

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Who it's for

This newsletter is for people working at the intersection of technology, security and AI — including:

Security architects, identity professionals, CISOs, technology leaders, cloud and platform teams, AI practitioners, governance professionals, consultants, engineers and anyone thinking seriously about how organisations can adopt AI securely.

You don't need to be an AI engineer to follow along.

The focus is on understanding what AI changes for enterprise security — and what security needs to change in response.

About Cynthia

I'm Cynthia Akiotu, a cybersecurity architect and Microsoft MVP in Security.

My work and research sit at the intersection of identity, data security, AI security, governance and agentic systems.

I write about the practical challenges organisations face as humans, applications, copilots and autonomous agents increasingly operate within the same digital environment.

I also speak at conferences and technical communities on cybersecurity, identity and securing enterprise AI.

Learn more about me

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