Data security · a YoctoIT presentation

IBM Guardium

Two frontiers, one platform: securing the AI you adopt today and the cryptography that protects you tomorrow.

AI SECURITY + QUANTUM SAFE Shadow AI, agents and cryptographic posture under control, in a single family
July 2026 · YoctoIT presentation material for customers and partners
01 · The context

Two waves are arriving together

AI enters the company faster than any control. And meanwhile quantum computing shortens the life of the cryptography protecting everything else.

24%
of generative AI projects are secured, while 82% consider a secure, trustworthy AI essential (source: IBM, 2024)
97%
of the organizations hit by AI-related incidents lacked adequate AI access controls (source: IBM, 2025)
30%
of organizations have completed a cryptographic inventory: the others don't know what to migrate (source: IBM, 2025)

The AI wave

shadow AI in the cloud and repositories, autonomous agents, sensitive data in the prompts

The quantum wave

"harvest now, decrypt later": the long-lived data stolen today gets decrypted tomorrow

02 · The platform

Data security, wherever the data lives

The IBM Guardium family protects the critical data with a simple model: discover, analyze, respond. Today that perimeter also includes AI models and cryptography.

Discover

sensitive data, AI models and cryptographic objects inventoried automatically, wherever they are

Analyze

posture, vulnerabilities and anomalies with analytics and AI: first what exposes the most

Respond

guided remediation, policies and reports ready for audits and compliance

IBM Guardiumend-to-end data security: Discover, Analyze, Respond
AI Securityshadow AI, agents, prompts and AI posture
Quantum Safe · Cryptography Managercryptographic inventory, keys, PQC migration
Data Protection and DDRdatabase monitoring and threat response
Discovery, Classify and Vulnerability Assessmentsensitive data classified and configurations verified
Today's two modules, highlighted, inside a family covering the data's whole life cycle
03 · AI Security

The problem: the AI you don't know you have

Every team adopts models, copilots and agents on its own. The result is an invisible risk surface: shadow AI.

Where it hides

in the cloud, in the code repositories and inside the applications with embedded AI: where nobody is inventorying it

What's at risk

vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, sensitive data in the prompts, autonomous agents acting without guardrails

What's needed

a continuous inventory and a posture measured over time: not a one-off audit that ages right away

The gap: 82% of companies consider a secure, trustworthy AI essential, but only 24% of generative AI projects are secured (source: IBM, 2024)
04 · AI Security

Guardium AI Security: discover, assess, protect

Security for AI models, agents and data along the whole life cycle, from development to production.

STEP 1

Discover

automatic, continuous discovery of AI models and agents: in the cloud, in the code repositories and in the apps with embedded AI

STEP 2

Assess

AI Security Posture Management and automated red teaming: vulnerabilities and misconfigurations emerge before the release

STEP 3

Protect

scanning of the inbound and outbound prompts: injection, personal data, information leaks, with customizable policies

STEP 4

Govern

with watsonx.governance: security risk and compliance in a single view, on the same use case

Compliance: validation against 12 frameworks, including the EU AI Act and ISO/IEC 42001, with an audit trail of the agents from dev to deploy (source: IBM, 2025)
05 · AI Security

Governance and security, finally together

When Guardium discovers a shadow AI, it enters watsonx.governance, gets associated with the use case and receives the right controls. Two teams, a single view of the risk.

Guardium discovers

an uninventoried model or agent appears in the cloud or in a repository

watsonx.governance frames it

the finding gets associated with the business use case and the appropriate risk controls

A single metric

security and governance read the same picture: business and security risk together

Because an ungoverned AI agent isn't innovation: it's a risk with the right credentials.

06 · Quantum Safe

Stolen today, decrypted tomorrow

"Harvest now, decrypt later"

the attackers collect encrypted data today and wait for the quantum computer to open it

The long-lived data

patents and industrial secrets, healthcare, banking and public-sector data: they hold value for decades

The migration is long

inventorying and replacing a company's cryptography takes years: that's why you start now

The roadmap is already written

2024

NIST publishes the PQC standards: ML-KEM and ML-DSA, born partly in the IBM Research labs

2030

the classic algorithms (RSA, ECC) heading to deprecation in the NIST roadmap

2035

full retirement planned: those who haven't migrated stay exposed

Sources: NIST and IBM

07 · Quantum Safe

Quantum Safe: the cryptographic posture

You can't migrate what you can't see: the cryptographic posture starts from the inventory and reaches crypto-agility.

STEP 1

Inventory

an inventory of algorithms, keys and certificates across systems and applications: the "shadow" cryptography emerges too

STEP 2

Assess

the post-quantum risk measured: weak or obsolete algorithms flagged, reports ready for the audits

STEP 3

Prioritize

risk scores and mapped dependencies: first the systems exposing the longest-lived data

STEP 4

Migrate

crypto-agility towards the PQC algorithms with automated remediation workflows

The starting point: only 30% of organizations have completed a cryptographic inventory (source: IBM, 2025). The first step alone is worth half the journey.
08 · The evolution

Cryptography Manager: the complete cycle

From October 2025 the Quantum Safe capabilities flow into IBM Guardium Cryptography Manager: posture, keys, certificates and database encryption in a single solution, with generative AI insights (source: IBM).

Posture and risk score

deep visibility over the cryptographic landscape, mapped dependencies, a company risk score and automated remediation workflows

Centralized keys and certificates

the life cycle in a single tool: automated key generation and certificate renewal, consistent policies everywhere

Agentless database encryption

transparent database encryption without agents, with automatic detection of the encryption gaps on the main enterprise databases

Generative AI accelerates the decisions: advanced insights and faster remediation on the cryptographic estate.

09 · The complete strategy

From the silicon to the governance

The Guardium posture leans on an ecosystem that's already ready for the quantum era and for AI.

IBM Power 11 and IBM Z

quantum-safe by design: ML-KEM and ML-DSA cryptography on secure boot, memory and inter-partition traffic

HashiCorp Vault

secrets, keys and PKI managed next to the systems: the strategy's operational safe

IBM Concert

the resilience and compliance posture (DORA, NIST) measured continuously, with the evidence for the audits

watsonx.governance

the governance of the company's AI, joined with Guardium's security in a single view of the risk

10 · YoctoIT

Var Group's IBM competence center

YoctoIT is a company of the Var Group, services division. We protect the data where it really lives: on Power, in the data center and in our customers' cloud, every day.

60+
IBM certifications in the team
200+
active certifications across 16 vendors
H24
NOC active 7 days a week, 365 days a year
99,9%
SLAs met
3.543
hosts monitored by our NOC
100+
active customers, 200+ projects in 3 years

Certified quality: ISO 9001:2015 · ISO 27001:2022 · ISO/IEC 27017 and 27018 · IBM Fusion Certified Partner

“IT that never stops”

11 · How we start

One assessment, two snapshots

01

Double assessment

An inventory of the company's AI and a cryptographic inventory: the snapshot of both waves, with the quick wins.

02

Activation

The Guardium platform on the priority perimeters: cloud, repositories, databases and core systems.

03

Guided remediation

AI posture and PQC migration by risk priority: first what exposes the long-lived data.

04

24/7 management

Continuous compliance in the YoctoIT Managed Services: reports, evidence and improvement over time.

You don't need to do everything at once: you need to know where you stand. The rest is a roadmap by priority.