Generative AI applications, such as ChatGPT, Bard and Llama, are rapidly being adopted by industry that use sensitive information such as healthcare or banking. Key voices from industry, government and academia are calling for technology companies to be held accountable for securing new AI models to protect users from poisoned models or data theft.
While government regulations are slowly coming, a group of cybersecurity professionals are sharing best practices to protect large language models powering these tools. Sean Oesch, a leader in emerging cyber technologies at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, contributed to the OWASP AI Security and Privacy Guide to inform global AI security standards and regulations.
“As these models continue to become more powerful, it is imperative that we engage in proactive discussions around their safety and security implications,” said Oesch, a member of the Center for AI Security Research at ORNL. “Contributing our expertise to open-source initiatives and standards is an excellent way to help push for the responsible use of AI in the wider community.” His experience has proven helpful with evaluating and creating AI-based cybersecurity systems to contribute to the discussion around AI safety and security.
OWASP, the Open-Source Foundation for Application Security, is best known for its top 10 lists of security vulnerabilities and is a community dedicated to making technology safer for everyone. The AI Security and Privacy Guide includes a graphic to “show how AI systems can be attacked, what the impact is and how they can be protected by information security practitioners or data scientists” said Rob van der Veer, the founder of the OWASP AI Exchange. With more collaboration to improve security and privacy around the growing AI revolution, professionals integrating AI models into their industry will have a community to lean on for best practices.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science. — Liz Neunsinger
