Responsible AI, Einbindung in
komplexe IT-Umgebung, Security
“Bedenken und Bremsklötze” für den Einsatz von AI
Rainer Stropek
Passionierter Softwareentwickler, IT-Unternehmer, CoderDojo-Mentor, Lehrer
software architects gmbh
rainer@software-architects.at
https://rainerstropek.me
Threat
Scenarios
Out of scope for today
- Challenges by AI for society (e.g. labor market)
- AI-generated Phishing Attacks
- Deepfake Scams and Impersonation
- Misinformation and Spread of False Information
- Automated cyberattacks leveraging AI
- Social engineering aided by AI insights
- AI-assisted insider threats
- AI-driven market manipulation
- Intellectual Property Theft (e.g., AI-assisted plagiarism)
- ...
We focus on threat scenarios for specific AI-based software projects
Threat Scenarios
The usual cloud security stuff...
- Data loss because of lack of strong data encryption (in transit, at rest)
- Unauthorized data access because of missing/flawed auth
- Unauthorized access because of secrets being in the wrong hands
- Denial of service/wallet attacks
- Attacks through code vulnerabilities
- Cross-tenant data access because of poor tenant separation
- GDPR violations (processing of PII in wrong regions)
Don't forget traditional software engineering and cloud security.
Your AI 🤖 is to a certain degree just another API/cloud app
Threat Scenarios
AI (LLM)-specific scenarios
- Prompt injections, prompt escapes
- Quality issues (prompts) after model updates
- Evasion of content moderation or filters
- Budget overrun
- Incorrect/unwanted responses because of hallucinations, biases, etc.
- Instabilities because of missing/flawed handling of token limits
- Overblocking because of flawed content filtering
- Unintended consequences of AI-generated content/decisions
New threats require new protective skills and tools.
Let's Protect Our 🤖 Friends
❗Secure hosting environment❗
- Here: Focus on OpenAI
- Self-hosting is not an option
- Is using OpenAI-hosted services an option?
- 👍 Access to the latest and greatest (preview) features
- 👍 Cost-efficient price plans (enterprise-ready?)
- 👍 GDPR-compliant DPA available for enterprise customers 🔗
- 👎 Additional cloud provider (legal, billing, etc.)
- 👎 Lack of integration into other hyperscaling clouds
- Option: Host OpenAI models on Azure
- 👍 Existing contracts with Azure
- 👍 Integration with other Azure security features (e.g. VNets, AAD)
- 👎 New features not immediately available after launched by OpenAI
- 👎 Lack of features in Azure's ChatGPT app (UI), quality issues
- DO use AAD-based authentication
- DO use Managed Identity where possible, AVOID using shared secrets
- DO favor PaaS and Serverless over IaaS/DIY
- Benefit from built-in security measures
- DO follow the principles of least privilege
- Azure RBAC
- CONSIDER limiting access to specific networks
- CONSIDER VNet integration and Private Endpoints
- DO use infrastructure-as-code
- Repeatability, ability to audit, reviewability
- DO apply the usual security stuff 😉
- Policies, PIM, tenant separation, budget alerts, code and architecture reviews, static code analysis, logging, protect endpoints, etc.
❗Secure hosting environment❗
AI/LLM Specific Security
- Be aware of Content Filtering 🔗
- Consider using AI Content Safety 🔗
- Carefully design and monitor the business model
- Usage monitoring, token usage statistics
- Use RAG pattern to provide verified/custom ground truth
- Limit AI to the provided ground truth using system prompts
- Monitor usage and adjust prompts if necessary
- Consider using Prompt Flow for prompt design, testing, etc. 🔗
- Don't let AI make legally binding/valid statements/decisions
- Provide links to sources to end user (RAG)
In general: Only DIY if really necessary!
Key Takeaways
- AI is a new and hot topic, but do not forget security fundamentals
- Train your cloud security muscle 💪
- You have to decide between OpenAI and Azure OpenAI
- Leading edge vs. enterprise readiness
- Prompting isn't trivial
- Functionality, quality assurance
- Avoid unfounded DIY mindset
- Benefit from latest developments in APIs and AI-related cloud services
Thank you for your attention!
Responsible AI, Einbindung in komplexe IT-Umgebung, Security
By Rainer Stropek
Responsible AI, Einbindung in komplexe IT-Umgebung, Security
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