When a security tool shows you that an AI agent can reach a production secret, the next question is always the same: did it? Has anyone actually used that route?
It is a fair question. It is also easy to answer wrongly in both directions. A route that exists is not proof that it was used. And a route that was never used is not harmless.
In this piece, we will cover:
- The difference between granted authority and observed activity
- Why a route you never used can still be a problem
- What "proven" means and what it does not
- How to act on a route without overclaiming
Two different questions
There are two things you can know about access.
| Granted authority | Observed activity | |
|---|---|---|
| The question | What is this identity allowed to do? | What did this identity actually do? |
| Where it comes from | Roles, grants, keys, trust relationships | Logs, audit events, usage records |
| What it tells you | The limit of what could happen | What has happened so far |
| What it cannot tell you | Whether it was used | What could happen next |
Most security conversations mix the two. "The agent accessed the secret" is a claim about activity. "The agent can access the secret" is a claim about authority. They need different evidence and lead to different actions.
Why an unused route still matters
It is tempting to say: nothing happened, so there is nothing to fix. That reasoning ignores who else can use the route.
- A token can be copied. Whoever holds it inherits every route it opens, whether or not the agent ever used them.
- A role can be assumed by other accounts. The route is open to all of them.
- An agent can be steered by the content it reads. Its authority is the limit of what such an instruction can do.
Authority is the ceiling on the damage. Activity tells you whether the ceiling has been touched. You need to manage the ceiling either way.
Why a route is not a breach
The opposite mistake is just as costly. Telling a team that "the agent accessed production data" when you only know that it could damages trust in the whole programme. The first time an engineer shows that the route was never used, every other finding gets doubted too.
Precision is not pedantry here. It is what keeps people working through the list.
What "proven" means in nerl0
In nerl0, a route is marked proven when every step in it is an observed relationship in the configuration and permission data of the platforms you connected: the agent holds the token, the token can assume the role, the role can read the store. Proven describes the route. It does not say that anyone used it.
That is why every answer in the product carries a note on what it cannot show. A scan may have collected only part of a platform. A relationship may exist that the connector could not read. The answer tells you which.
5 measures changed between the scan of 7 Nov 07:00 and the scan of 9 Nov 07:00.
- The scan of 7 Nov 07:00 collected salesforce only partly: a difference there can be a difference in visibility, not in your environment.
- Counts compare totals; they do not say which entities came or went. Latest changes on the dashboard lists them per question.
Ask anything, @ charts & metrics, or / for skills…
How to act on a route
- Rank by what it reaches. Routes to crown jewels come first, whatever their activity history.
- Find the breakpoint. The single change that interrupts the most routes: a role that is assumed too widely, a key with too much scope.
- Say what you know. In the ticket, write "this route exists", not "this was exploited", unless you have the logs that show it.
- Verify the fix. After the change, the next scan should show that the route is gone. If it does not, the finding stays open.
Summary
Granted authority and observed activity answer different questions. A route that exists is not proof of use, and a route nobody used is still a ceiling on what can go wrong. Work on the route, describe it for what it is, and let the next scan confirm the fix.
Sascha writes about what AI agents and non-human identities can reach, and builds nerl0 to keep that visible.