3 Risks of Artificial Intelligence: A Risky Business

As technology continues to advance, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly prevalent in the business world. From powering customer service chatbots to automating mundane tasks, AI offers a wide range of benefits—but it also presents some serious cybersecurity risks. Let’s take an in-depth look at these risks and figure out how you can protect your business from them.

Three Inherent Risks of AI Tools

At the most basic level, any tool that interacts with your digital infrastructure poses a risk to your business’s security. This is especially true if that tool has access to sensitive data or allows users to interact with the system directly. The same applies to AI-powered tools; they may increase efficiency (as explored), but they also introduce potential vulnerabilities to your system.

AI Risk 1: Exploiting access rights

One such vulnerability is malicious actors exploiting access rights granted by AI tools. For example, let’s say you have an AI-powered tool that makes decisions about who should be granted access to certain areas of your system based on user credentials. If a malicious actor can gain access to those credentials and bypass the security measures put in place by the AI, then they could gain unauthorized access to parts of your system that are not meant for their eyes.

AI Risk 2: AI Tool Failure or Malfunction

Another potential issue is when an AI-powered tool fails due to its errors or because of external factors like malicious input or data manipulation. Such failures can lead to incorrect decisions being made or even significant disruptions within your digital infrastructure if the AI tool was controlling critical systems or processes. In addition, such failures can sometimes be difficult or impossible for humans to detect and correct without shutting off the AI entirely—which can cause further problems if the AI was controlling something important.

AI Risk 3: Data Privacy

Generative AI systems can analyze vast amounts of data – including that inputted by end-users (i.e. company employees), which raises concerns around the security of sensitive information. If employees input confidential or personal information (i.e. social security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers) into a generative AI tool, there is no guarantee on how that data may reappear in the future. This poses an evident threat to privacy, and as AI progresses, adversaries could potentially exploit vulnerabilities within the system to access confidential data.

AI Risk Takeaways:

The key takeaway here is that while artificial intelligence offers many benefits, it also introduces new cybersecurity risks that must be managed appropriately for businesses to remain secure and compliant with industry standards and regulations. By taking steps like limiting access rights, monitoring changes in user behavior, and implementing comprehensive security protocols, organizations can ensure that their use of AI tools does not compromise their security posture—and keep themselves safe from surprises down the line!

If you want to learn more about the implications of AI on business, check out this conversation between Dataprise cross-functional leaders: Mary Beth Hamilton (CMO), David Schwartz (SVP, Mobility), Stephen Jones (VP, Cybersecurity).