Securing the Autonomous Supply Chain: Defending the new attack surface of agentic operations across the physical–digital convergence - Softcover

MJ Schwenger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1806386577 ISBN 13: 9781806386574

Publisher: Packt Publishing - ebooks Account, 2026

Synopsis

The autonomous supply chain is the emerging attack surface of the next decade. When AI decisions can drive physical action, the execution perimeter becomes the new security boundary. Explore the threat chain across the physical–digital convergence through a practical approach to implementation, with 17 customizable artifacts from the ASCR blueprint to turn security strategy into action.

Key Features

• Explores emerging security risks in autonomous supply chains where AI agents control real-world operations
• Provides practical frameworks such as SADLC, ASOC, and ASCR for securing agentic AI systems
• Combines threat analysis and real-world field reports for modern cyber-physical security

Book Description

As agentic systems move from human-approved decisions toward semi-autonomous and autonomous execution, security must address more than how AI can be compromised. The critical question is what happens when an agent can turn a decision into physical action. This book introduces the Execution Perimeter and Cyber-Physical Systems Threat Chain, helping readers understand how digital intelligence can propagate through connectivity and actuation to physical consequences, and where adversaries can intervene.

The book takes readers from understanding the emerging cyber-physical threat landscape and identifying attack paths to securing, deploying, monitoring, and responding to agentic systems. Four threat scenarios and integrated attack models demonstrate these concepts in realistic autonomous operations, while the ASCR Blueprint provides a practical approach to making security enforceable, auditable, and defensible.

By the end, readers will be able to secure agentic execution chains, validate execution authority, identify and disrupt attacks, and build resilient security architectures for autonomous operations. They will also gain 17 reusable ASCR artifacts spanning risk intelligence, technical enforcement, operational response, and governance to move from strategy to implementation.

What you will learn

• Trace the cyber-physical threat chain from AI reasoning and connectivity to actuation and physical consequences
• Secure MCP gateways, agent identity, decision lineage, telemetry, and forensic evidence
• Validate agent behavior safely using digital twins and pre-production testing
• Align security architecture and governance with EU AI Act, NIS2, IEC 62443, and NIST AI RMF
• Apply the ASCR Blueprint and 17 artifacts across risk, enforcement, response, and governance
• Develop phased maturity strategies for resilient autonomous supply chains

Who this book is for

The book is for CISOs, security architects, risk and technology leaders, AI/ML and security engineers, OT/ICS teams, and cybersecurity consultants. It helps leaders develop security, governance, and resilience strategies; technical practitioners secure agentic systems across MCP, identity, telemetry, and forensic evidence; and consultants apply reusable frameworks and practical artifacts to assessments and transformation programs. Readers should have a basic understanding of security architecture, or OT/ICS. Familiarity with AI/ML, agentic systems, and security frameworks is helpful.

Table of Contents

1. The Agentic Revolution: From Copilots to Autonomous Execution
2. The Physical AI Security Landscape: Threat Terrain Across the Cyber-Physical Systems Threat Chain
3. The Agentic Threat Matrix: Attacks on Intelligence and Coordination
4. The Hardware and Edge Attack Surface: Attacks on Connectivity and Actuation
5. Securing Models, Data, and Decision Lineage
6. The Secure Agentic Development Lifecycle (SADLC)

(N.B. Please use the Read Sample option to see further chapters)

About this title

About the Author

MJ is a cybersecurity and technology executive with more than 20 years of experience spanning cybersecurity, AI and data, software and application engineering, DevSecOps/SRE, cyber resilience, privacy, compliance, and technology risk. Her work has focused on bringing these disciplines together across government, regulated industries, and commercial organizations, with experience in finance, healthcare, technology, retail, and manufacturing.

She has led AI implementations, data management and governance, application security, digital transformation, and enterprise technology initiatives, working with startups, SMBs, and Fortune 100 companies. Her experience enables her to apply security across AI and data, applications, cloud and infrastructure, and enterprise technology as interconnected domains rather than separate disciplines.

This cross-disciplinary perspective informs her work on the emerging security challenges of agentic AI and Physical–Digital Convergence, where AI, cybersecurity, software, data, cloud infrastructure, and physical operations increasingly intersect.

Edition details

• Publisher: Packt Publishing - ebooks Account
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1806386577
• ISBN 13: 9781806386574
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528