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While GenAI Adoption Surges, Report Shows Security Preparedness Lags

Ninety-five percent of cybersecurity experts express low confidence in GenAI security measures while red team data shows anyone can easily hack GenAI models

August 22, 2024

August 21, 2024

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‍San Francisco, USA and Zurich, Switzerland / August 21, 2024 —Lakera, the world’s leading real-time Generative AI (GenAI) Security company, today released the 2024 GenAI Security Readiness Report. This report confirms GenAI adoption is surging but surfaces a concerning blind spot for hundreds of enterprises – GenAI security.

Attack methods specific to GenAI, or prompt attacks, are easily used by anyone to manipulate the applications, gain unauthorized access, steal confidential data and take unauthorized actions. Realizing this, only five percent of the 1,000 cybersecurity experts surveyed have confidence in the security measures protecting their GenAI applications even as 90% are actively using or exploring GenAI.

“With just a few well-crafted words, even a novice can manipulate AI systems, leading to unintended actions and data breaches,” said David Haber, co-founder and CEO at Lakera. “As businesses increasingly rely on GenAI to accelerate innovation and manage sensitive tasks, they unknowingly expose themselves to new vulnerabilities that traditional cybersecurity measures don’t address. The combination of high adoption and low preparedness may not be that surprising in an emerging area, but the stakes have never been higher. ”

With GenAI Everyone is a Potential Hacker

Gandalf, an AI educational game created by Lakera, has attracted more than one million players including cybersecurity experts attempting to breach its defenses. Remarkably, 200,000 of these players have successfully completed seven levels of the game, demonstrating their ability to manipulate GenAI models into taking unintended actions. This provides an incredibly valuable reference point for the magnitude of the problem. Entering commands using their native language and a bit of creativity allowed these players to trick Gandalf’s level seven in only 45 minutes on average. This stark example underscores a troubling truth: everyone is now a potential hacker and businesses require a new approach to security for GenAI.

“The race to adopt GenAI, fueled by C-suite demands, makes security preparedness more vital now than at any pivotal moment in technology’s evolution. GenAI is a once in a lifetime disruption,” said Joe Sullivan, ex-CSO of Cloudflare, Uber, and Meta (Facebook), and advisor to Lakera. “To harness its potential, though, businesses must consider its challenges and that, hands down, is the security risk. Being prepared and mitigating that risk is the #1 job at hand for those companies leading adoption.”

Additional Key Findings

LLM reliability and accuracy is the number 1 barrier to adoption: 35% of respondents are fearful of LLM reliability and accuracy, while 34% are concerned with data privacy and security. The lack of skilled personnel accounts for 28% of the concerns.

45% of respondents are exploring GenAI use cases; 42% are actively using and implementing GenAI Just 9% have no current plans to adopt LLMs.
Only 22% of respondents have adopted AI-specific threat modeling to prepare for GenAI specific threats.

The GenAI Security Readiness Report survey was conducted between May 15-22, 2024. It received 1,000 responses from individuals, 60 percent of whom have more than five years of cybersecurity experience. Lakera expects to execute the survey and produce the GenAI Security Readiness Report annually to track how preparedness changes as teams are more informed about the security risks of GenAI.

For more information and to download the complete GenAI Readiness Report, please visit: http://aisecurity.report/

Lakera recently announced its $20 million Series A Funding round led by European VC Atomico, with participation from Citi Ventures, Dropbox Ventures, and existing investors including redalpine. As businesses worldwide scramble to harness the power of GenAI without exposing themselves to AI-specific risks, the demand for Lakera’s platform is expected to continue growing at a rapid clip.

About Lakera

Lakera is the world’s leading real-time GenAI security company. Customers rely on Lakera for security that doesn’t slow down their AI applications. To accelerate secure adoption of AI, the company created Gandalf, an educational tool, where more than one million users have learned about AI security. Lakera uses AI to continuously evolve defenses, so customers can stay ahead of emerging threats. Lakera was founded by David Haber, Mateo Rojas-Carulla and Matthias Kraft in 2021.

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Lakera Report: AI Adoption Surges, Security Preparedness Lags Behind

Our findings reveal a rapid adoption of GenAI technologies, with nearly 90% of organizations actively implementing or planning to explore LLM use cases. Despite this high adoption rate, only about 5% of organizations feel highly confident in their AI security preparedness.