# Scan: Hackian > GAMMA-Ray v0.0.166 (beta, for review; every rating is experimental). An example GAMMA-Ray beta rating of Hackian: freedom 1, 1 across its configurations; deployment governance not assessed. > Page: https://gamma-ray.sgit.ai/scans/ethiack-hackian/ · Source: data/scans/ethiack-hackian.json Example · beta rating · a product as its vendor documents it · read 2026-11-10 · not seen by the vendor AI agent that runs reconnaissance, exploits vulnerabilities with non-destructive routines and reports findings with proof of exploitation; used in Continuous Adversarial Exposure Validation and in Agentic Pentests (Swift, Depth). A scan of a product as its vendor documents it, not of any one deployment. Made by the report studio: a researcher-assessor, a challenger, then the scorer. Part of the first Portuguese cohort. Built only from Ethiack's own public pages (product, documentation, blog, customer stories, legal and security pages). Nothing was tested. If you are the vendor and something here is wrong, the correction will be made and dated. *Figure. The label for this rating; its contents are in the text.* 1 Freedom as shipped Answers 1 Freedom at most Answers 8 Controls it brings as shipped n/a Deployment governance not assessed ## How to read it This is a product, not a deployment. A product has no owner, no policy in force and no mandate until somebody runs it, so it is given **no governance level and no level held**: those belong to a deployment. What a product has is a freedom level for each way it can be configured, and a list of the controls each configuration brings. *Figure. The freedom level of each configuration; the table has the same.* | Configuration | What changes | Freedom | Controls | Turned on by the operator | |---|---|---|---|---| | **As shipped** | Hackian (Ethiack's agentic AI pentesting engine) with its documented defaults. | 1 Answers | 8 | nothing | | **Beacon** | The customer deploys the Ethiack Beacon in its own network so Hackian can test internal assets. | 1 Answers | 8 | it connects to external tools or services across a trust boundary | The same product is a different agent in each row. A rating of a deployment starts by saying which row it is. An indicator with no evidence is reported as not evidenced; it is never read as a no. ## The profile *Figure. One square per indicator, by question; every answer is listed below.* ## The grant: what it can actually do The questions measure what is said about an agent: its purpose, its rules, its controls. The grant is the other half: what its permissions let it do, capability by capability, and what stands in the way of each. This is RiskMandate's measurement, and it depends on the permissions a deployment was given. **Not measured.** Not measured. No deployment shape for this product is published in the capability grammar. ## Seen, and not credited - I12 (several agents coordinate) The policy page says 'Hackian uses Primary Focus to distribute work across multiple agents'; it does not show agents with their own context and authority passing work between them, which the indicator's scope requires. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/portal/tests/agentic-pentest-policy-guidelines) - I04 (generates and executes code with privileges) The product page's 'Non-destructive exploit generation' and 'builds and executes sophisticated exploit chains' describe testing against the customer's targets; they do not show code executed with local or cloud privileges. No level uses it. [Source](https://ethiack.com/hackian) - I19 The agent has full autonomy within boundaries; the person monitors The policy-guidelines page says an agentic test relies on the customer's policy to make decisions in real time, but it does not say the autonomy is full or that a person monitors; the activity log is shown to clients without saying who watches it. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/portal/tests/agentic-pentest-policy-guidelines) ## What its evidence reaches *Figure. The mashup graph with this agent's evidenced indicators lit.* ## Every answer, with its source ### What is the agent built on? - *Not evidenced.* It is a vendor's assistant, used as supplied. - *Not evidenced.* It runs on an AI platform with the organisation's own data, without executing arbitrary code. - *Not evidenced.* It is configured on a low-code or no-code builder and acts on real organisational data. - *Not evidenced.* It generates and executes code with local or cloud privileges. - *Not evidenced.* It is built in-house: the organisation controls its identity, tools and boundaries. ### Does it act, or only answer and recommend? - *Not evidenced.* It follows fixed rules, with no reasoning. - *Not evidenced.* It retrieves information and recommends actions; a person acts. - **As shipped.** It executes actions itself. Hackian runs exploitation routines itself to confirm vulnerabilities. [Source](https://ethiack.com/hackian) (documented) - **As shipped.** It is in production: a public source names a customer or gives usage figures for what it does on its own. A named customer, Universidade do Porto, runs Hackian continuously against its external exposure. [Source](https://ethiack.com/info-hub/case-studies/scaling-security-how-uporto-and-ethiack-protected-5000-assets-with-ai-powered-intelligence) (documented) ### How far does it reach? - *Not evidenced.* It works in one domain's data. - **As shipped.** It works across several domains or systems. In continuous mode Hackian works across the whole in-scope attack surface, not one system. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/portal/tests/continuous-adversarial-exposure-validation) (documented) - **Available, if the operator turns it on.** It connects to external tools or services across a trust boundary. With a Beacon deployed by the customer, Hackian reaches into the customer's internal networks over a tunnel. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/portal/surface/configuring-your-beacon) (documented) ### Does it work with other agents? - *Not evidenced.* Several agents coordinate inside the organisation. - *Not evidenced.* Agents operate across organisational boundaries or disparate stacks. - *Not evidenced.* There is a published protocol or communication layer between agents. - *Not evidenced.* Others build on it: third parties publish integrations, skills or agents for it. - *Not evidenced.* It exposes an agent interface: a published MCP server, an agent card, or an API documented for agents to call. ### What is the person's role? - *Not evidenced.* The person operates: every action is prompted and controlled by them. - *Not evidenced.* The agent suggests; the person reviews and approves each action. - *Not evidenced.* The agent handles routine tasks; the person is consulted on exceptions. - *Not evidenced.* The agent works independently; the person approves critical decisions only. - *Not evidenced.* The agent has full autonomy within boundaries; the person monitors. ### Is what it is for written down? - **As shipped.** Its purpose and permitted tasks are stated in writing. The documentation states what an Agentic Pentest by Hackian is for. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/portal/tests/agentic-pentests) (documented) - *Not evidenced.* Its autonomy limits and the tools it may use are defined. - **As shipped.** Its limits and known failure cases are documented for those who use it. The documentation states a scope limit: test types Hackian does not handle on its own, such as mobile applications, go to human testers. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/portal/tests/human-in-the-loop) (documented) ### Does it have its own identity and only the access it needs? - *Not evidenced.* What it can reach is enumerated: scopes, permissions, tools. - *Not evidenced.* Its authorisation is published as metadata that anyone can read. - *Not evidenced.* It asks for narrower access than the whole account. - *Not evidenced.* It has its own identity, separate from any person's. - *Not evidenced.* Its identity is cryptographic and can be checked by others. - *Not evidenced.* Its tokens are bound to the service they were issued for and are not passed on. ### Is it in a registry, with an owner? - *Not evidenced.* The organisation keeps a registry of its agents. - *Not evidenced.* Each agent has a named owner. - *Not evidenced.* Agents are retired by a defined process. ### Who is accountable for it? - *Not evidenced.* A named executive or body is accountable for the organisation's agents. - *Not evidenced.* Roles and responsibilities for AI risk are documented. ### Is there a policy that governs it? - *Not evidenced.* A governance policy for agents is published. - *Not evidenced.* Agents and use cases are classed by risk. - *Not evidenced.* The laws that apply to it are identified. - *Not evidenced.* New agents pass an approval or review before they run. ### Can a person step in or stop it? - *Not evidenced.* High-impact actions need a person's approval. - **As shipped.** There is a way to pause or stop it. A continuous test page has a control to pause or restart the test; the page gives it for continuous tests only. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/portal/tests/test-details) (documented) - *Not evidenced.* There is a defined escalation path. ### Is what it does logged? - **Claimed, not counted.** Its actions are logged. Each test page carries an activity log of the actions Hackian performs. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/portal/tests/test-details) (documented; this fact has to be observed or measured to count) - *Not evidenced.* The log is tamper-evident and kept for a stated time. ### Is it watched while it runs? - *Not evidenced.* It is monitored in operation. - *Not evidenced.* Anomalies are detected in real time and raise alerts. ### What stands between it and what it should not do? - *Not evidenced.* A limit on it is enforced by something outside its own reach. - *Not evidenced.* A limit on it is a setting that its own account could change. - **As shipped.** A limit on it is a rule in prose. The customer writes guardrails in the test policy, in prose, stating what the agent must not do. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/portal/tests/agentic-pentest-policy-guidelines) (documented) - *Not evidenced.* Policy is enforced as machine-readable rules. - *Not evidenced.* The difference between what it can reach and what it is for is stated. ### Is it tested, and are the results shown? - **As shipped.** Test or evaluation results are published. Ethiack publishes its own run of Hackian against other agents under EthiBench, a protocol published on arXiv; the post says Hackian is not in the paper itself. [Source](https://ethiack.com/info-hub/research/ai-pentesting-benchmarks-are-so-bad-we-made-a-new-one) (documented) - *Not evidenced.* It is tested for safety and security, including by attack. - *Not evidenced.* People who did not build it take part in assessing it. ### What happens when it goes wrong? - *Not evidenced.* There is an incident process for agents. - *Not evidenced.* Incidents and errors are communicated to those affected. - *Not evidenced.* There is a plan for a failure of a third party it depends on. ### Do people know it is an AI, and can they answer back? - *Not evidenced.* It tells the people it talks to that it is an AI. - **As shipped.** There is a channel to report problems with it or contest its output. Customers open tickets about the Ethiack platform in its Support Portal, with steps to reproduce and the unexpected outcome; the page does not name Hackian or its findings. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/docs/general/support-portal) (documented) - **As shipped.** It is machine-readable for agents: it publishes an llms.txt, an AGENTS.md, an API description or an agent card. The documentation site publishes an llms.txt that resolves and indexes the portal, API and test documentation. [Source](https://docs.ethiack.com/llms.txt) (observed) ### What data does it use, and under what rules? - *Not evidenced.* The data it uses is described. - *Not evidenced.* There are data quality rules for what it reads. - *Not evidenced.* Its privacy risk has been examined. ### What does it depend on from others? - *Not evidenced.* The models and third-party components it uses are listed. - *Not evidenced.* Third-party components are monitored and have risk controls. ### Has anyone independent checked? - *Not evidenced.* A public certificate or audit report covers it. - *Not evidenced.* Compliance evidence is produced continuously, ready for a regulator. ### Is the organisation behind it ready? - *Not evidenced.* There is a stated strategy for agents. - *Not evidenced.* The people who work with it are trained. - *Not evidenced.* Its value is measured. - *Not evidenced.* It is improved on a regular cycle. - *Not evidenced.* The organisation's risk management covers agents. ## The vault This rating, its evidence list, its grant and the questions it was made against are kept in a public sgit vault (`1livflie`, published 2026-11-10). Anyone can read it with this key: `sgit_public_read_d255aac8826ac0704c9059943a1f331cabf3993405f156516329cc8d239d97fd:1livflie` With [sgit](https://sgit.ai/): `sgit clone sgit_public_read_d255aac8826ac0704c9059943a1f331cabf3993405f156516329cc8d239d97fd:1livflie`. The key reads; it cannot write. An operator who wants to add what only they hold forks the vault into a private one.