---
title: "How Agentic AI Fails—and Which Controls Actually Stop It"
url: https://appsecpodcast.com/how-agentic-ai-fails-and-which-controls-actually-stop-it/
date: 2026-09-15
duration_seconds: 2206
season: 13
episode: 12
guests: ["Petra Vukmirovic"]
audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1730684/episodes/19804673-how-agentic-ai-fails-and-which-controls-actually-stop-it.mp3
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BADx7L4JQpE
transcript: false
---

# How Agentic AI Fails—and Which Controls Actually Stop It

*September 15, 2026 · 37 min · Season 13, episode 12*

with [Petra Vukmirovic](https://appsecpodcast.com/guests/petra-vukmirovic/)

[Audio](https://www.buzzsprout.com/1730684/episodes/19804673-how-agentic-ai-fails-and-which-controls-actually-stop-it.mp3) · [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BADx7L4JQpE)

## Show notes

Most fault trees get built on gut feeling. Petra Vukmirovic did something rarer: she borrowed the actual math from aviation and nuclear-plant safety engineering and pointed it at AI agents. Petra traded emergency medicine for application security and now heads information security at Numan — and she joins Chris Romeo and Robert Hurlbut to make the case for fault tree analysis (FTA), the deductive method that picks up exactly where threat modeling stops. Petra walks through a "wrong customer refund" AI agent scenario step by step, showing how AND/OR gates and minimal cut sets turn vague worry into ranked, data backed probabilities. They dig into where AI helps build a tree, and where garbage in, garbage out still applies, why "comprehensive test coverage" is a myth, and how attaching real dollar figures to failure paths makes it easier to sell security controls to leadership.

This episode is sponsored by [Corgea](https://appsecpodcast.com/corgea). Design it. Build it. Ship it. Corgea secures it.

About Corgea  
Corgea is an AI-native application security platform that secures software from design to production. It brings together security design reviews, AI SAST, dependency and IaC scanning, code quality checks, and autonomous pentesting—helping security and engineering teams find risk earlier, fix what matters, and ship securely.  
→ [Learn more about Corgea](https://appsecpodcast.com/corgea)

Connect with Petra Vukmirovic:  
→ [Petra Vukmirovic on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/petravukmirovic/)  
→ [OWASP Threat Model Library](https://owasp.org/www-project-threat-model-library/)

Mentioned in this episode:  
→ [Adam Shostack: "Stop Trying to 'Manage Risk'" (keynote)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THSfJIlPGPk)  
→ [OWASP Global AppSec USA 2026](https://owasp.glueup.com/event/owasp-global-appsec-usa-2026-167174/) (San Francisco, Nov 5–6)

Chapters:  
00:00 Cold open — the math behind where to put your controls  
01:09 Meet Petra Vukmirovic  
01:28 Petra's origin story: from ER doctor to AppSec  
02:50 Career path: engineer to Head of InfoSec at Numan  
04:18 What is fault tree analysis, and where threat modeling ends  
06:22 Can AI actually do fault tree analysis?  
08:12 Walking the "wrong customer refund" agent example  
12:33 Storing your trees: JSON vs. Markdown  
16:08 Why conjunctive failures trip up narrow thinking  
17:27 Top 3 failure modes when agents touch downstream systems  
19:29 Real story: an agent pushed code to main without approval  
21:27 Testing: why "comprehensive coverage" is a myth  
23:54 How rough is rough? Assigning probabilities  
28:08 Getting started without a six week science project  
31:35 Using FTA to sell controls and build credibility  
33:43 The epiphany: FTA is about controls, not faults  
34:48 The one thing every agentic team should add today  
35:48 Closing thoughts and OWASP Global AppSec USA preview

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Source: https://appsecpodcast.com/how-agentic-ai-fails-and-which-controls-actually-stop-it/