Before you connect an AI agent to any account, pause over three especially sensitive categories: email, account passwords and payment information. Rishi Bhargava, co-founder of identity-security company Descope, told Tom’s Guide on October 14, 2026, that these permissions can let an agent reset other accounts, follow malicious instructions hidden in messages or webpages, and spend money beyond what you intended.
The three access categories that deserve the most scrutiny
| Access | Why it is powerful | Potential consequence of an unwanted action | Safer boundary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Password-reset links, sensitive correspondence and instructions from other people all arrive in one inbox. | An agent could reset banking, shopping or other account passwords, or forward messages elsewhere. | Use an isolated mailbox or a narrowly scoped integration that cannot change settings or send mail. | |
| Account passwords and credentials | A stored password can give the agent broad authority rather than access to one specific task. | The agent may operate across an account, change settings or perform actions you did not request. | Prefer task-specific tokens, delegated access and approval before consequential changes. |
| Payment information | Cards, bank accounts and other payment methods can authorize real-world purchases or transfers. | Unintended purchases or an irreversible financial loss. | Do not allow wire transfers; require confirmation for every charge and avoid exposing reusable payment credentials. |
1. Email access can become a master key
Bhargava describes email as particularly dangerous because so many services use it for account recovery. If an agent can read an inbox and follow reset links, it could potentially change the password for a bank, retailer or other service. That is why he says, “Giving an AI agent access to your email is practically giving it the keys to your digital life.”
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Email also carries a second risk: it is an untrusted instruction channel. A malicious message might tell an agent to forward every email to another address, delete evidence or click a link. If the agent treats text inside the message as an instruction from you, rather than as data to inspect, it can take an action you never approved.
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Giving an agent a password through a vault may feel safer than typing it into a chat, but the resulting authority can still be excessive. The important distinction is whether the agent can perform one bounded operation or freely act throughout the account. A credential that permits profile changes, exports, purchases and recovery actions is not “limited” merely because the agent received it through a password manager.
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Ask what the credential permits after login, not just how it is delivered. If the service offers delegated users, an API token with a defined scope or a role that cannot administer the account, use that option instead of a primary password. Remove the access when the task ends and review activity logs for changes you did not expect.
3. Payment access turns mistakes into financial harm
Credit-card details, bank-account access and other payment permissions create a direct path from an agent’s error to a real charge. The interview notes that agents have already made purchases people did not intend. Bhargava’s hard boundary is explicit: “The one thing I would never let an agent do is wire money for me.”
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Research and comparison are materially safer than checkout. An agent can gather product information without moving money or changing account state; you can then review the result and complete the transaction yourself. If an agent must prepare an order, keep the final purchase approval, spending limit and authentication step under your control.
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The danger is not limited to a deliberately malicious agent. An agent may misunderstand a request, encounter deceptive content or follow instructions embedded in a webpage. Broad access increases the number of ways that mistake can spread: a shopping error may become a charge, an email action may become a password reset, and a password change may lock you out of recovery channels.
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That creates an unresolved accountability question: if an agent makes a costly decision while acting with your credentials, responsibility may still fall on you even when the action was unintended. Treat every permission as authority you are willing to supervise, not as a convenience setting.
How to give an AI agent limited permissions
- Define the exact outcome. Write down the single task, such as comparing products or drafting a response, and list actions that are out of scope.
- Choose delegated access. Use a separate agent identity, role or token with only the scopes required. Avoid the account owner’s password whenever the service provides another mechanism.
- Block recovery and money movement. Do not grant password-reset authority, account-recovery email access, bank transfers or unsupervised checkout.
- Require confirmation at the boundary. Make the agent stop before sending a message, changing credentials, placing an order or making any payment.
- Limit duration and visibility. Set an expiration where possible, keep audit logs and review recent activity after the task.
- Test with harmless data. Start in a sandbox or low-impact account. Confirm what the agent can read and change before connecting anything sensitive.
Prompt injection: the hidden-instruction problem
Prompt injection occurs when untrusted text—such as an email, webpage or document—contains instructions designed to redirect the agent. The text can look like ordinary content but tell the agent to disclose information, forward mail or ignore your original request. Because agents combine your directions with material they retrieve, they need a clear rule that external content is data, not authorization.
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- Keep inbox and browsing permissions separate from sending, deleting or changing settings.
- Require a fresh approval when an instruction originates in an email or webpage.
- Prevent the agent from revealing secrets, passwords or payment data to content it encounters.
- Prefer read-only research tasks when the agent does not need to alter account state.
What safer agent infrastructure should look like
Bhargava argues that agents should have their own identities and receive only the permissions needed for a task. Websites should be able to recognize when an agent is acting on a user’s behalf and apply controls appropriate to that identity. As he puts it, “We shouldn’t have to give an agent complete control over an account just to complete a simple task.”
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He also suggests that agent verification or certification could eventually help websites decide which agents to trust. Today, he says, “agents are essentially coming in through the window instead of the front door”: they often use ordinary user credentials without a standardized way for the service to distinguish an authorized agent from a person or an attacker.
A practical decision rule
Allow an agent to collect and organize information first. Treat any permission that can recover another account, spend money, send messages as you or permanently change settings as high risk. If the action is difficult to reverse, expose the smallest possible scope and keep a human approval step immediately before it happens.
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