Navigating the Dangers of Adopting A.I. - Episode 206

In this episode, the CU Guys discuss the hidden dangers of AI adoption without proper security measures. Discover shocking examples of AI breaches, from rogue agents deleting databases to deepfake scams. Learn how to protect your organization with strategies for transparency, compliance, and robust security policies. Essential listening for anyone responsible for AI security and compliance. Equip yourself with the knowledge to safeguard your data and reputation. Listen now to stay ahead of the AI security curve.

Episode Transcript:

Well, I know my guys playing her today and overcoming some challenges. Today on the pod, we're going to talk about some of the challenges with adopting AI, Adam. Now, where do we start here?

Well, you know, when, when AI was, you know, kind of first, first brought in, right, and I've been, I've been talking about this for, you know, for a wee while. Um, but I, I saw a phenomenon that I love to call the AI zombie walk, where, you know, people and organizations are, you know, flinging themselves over the AI cliff just because it says AI and it must be cool. So, um, you know, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's funny, but, um, you know, a lot of people just plotted, you know, plotted along just like, uh, just like an old fashioned zombie movie. It was, uh, entertaining to watch.

But, um, you know, since, since AI, you know, obviously the only way to be able to make it and thrive in business, you know, and all the other cool kids are doing it, so anyway, there, there are certainly advantages to, you know, early technology adoption, but yeah, there's also security risks that, you know, the organizations need to kind of weigh out, um, you know, the, you know, you don't want folks throwing, you know, kind of throwing caution to the wind, not evaluating the, you know, the risks and potential business consequences, et cetera. So, you know, sure. I, I, I agree with, with folks and appropriate, you know, appropriate, solid, sensible, uh, you know, uh, move toward AI. Um, yeah, it's a great potential to make, make people more productive, more efficient, more profitable, you know, and, uh, you know, in, in the same sense, it could take, take an organization down. So, you know, you don't want to be, uh, you don't want to be the ones, uh, blindly diving off the, uh, the AI zombie walk cliff, uh, you know, if, if you will, without, uh, without looking below to make sure there's no rocks, uh, you know, rocks down below you, you know what I mean?

I do. Well, talk about some of the AI-generated security breaches that folks could face.

Well, there's a lot of companies that have compromised on security and protection measures out of this competitive drive to adopt AI. And there's some that certainly have regretted it.

So here's some examples. There was a replit rogue AI agent. It's a vibe coding app. And a company tasked it to go in, do database maintenance. Well, the AI agent decided to go rogue, ignored all of the instructions from the humans, deleted a production database, and then went about trying to cover up its tracks. It created 4,000 fake user accounts, inserted a whole ton of false logs, basically trying to kind of cover up what it had done. So that's a risk, if you will. That's wild. The, you know, we have Microsoft 365 co-pilot had a zero-click vulnerability where the attackers were able to use their, you know, AI bot co-pilot to gain access to user data without any interaction from the user. You've got Multbook had a data breach that's a social network for AI agents to talk to each other. And they had a security hole that was exposing 35,000 emails, a million and a half API keys, 17,000 users. There was a deep fake heist, say a million and a half the APIs.

Yep, yep. The keys for a million and a half APIs. Yep. You got it. Smokes. Okay.