How Small- And Medium-Sized Businesses Can Navigate The Cybersecurity Risks Of AI

By William Sims

Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the business world, providing companies with powerful tools to automate processes, streamline operations and gain a competitive edge. However, while AI offers numerous benefits, it also poses significant cybersecurity risks to small- and medium-sized businesses that often lack the resources and expertise to defend against attacks.

My company conducts cybersecurity training, and as a cybersecurity engineer, here are some of the top potential cybersecurity risks I see associated with AI and the steps SMBs can take to mitigate them.

The Handling Of Sensitive Data

AI systems process and store large amounts of data, including sensitive information such as financial and confidential business information. If this data falls into the wrong hands, it can result in serious consequences, such as financial losses, data theft and privacy violations. I recommend SMBs implement robust cybersecurity measures, such as encryption and access controls, to ensure the protection of their data.

Encryption is the process of transforming information into a code to protect its confidentiality so that it can only be read by someone with the secret decryption key. Access control is the process of allowing or denying access to specific resources based on a set of rules or conditions. Both encryption and access control are important measures for maintaining the security of sensitive information stored online.

The Manipulation Of AI Models

AI models can be vulnerable to adversarial attacks, where attackers manipulate the input data to cause the model to make incorrect decisions. This can result in serious consequences, such as financial losses, data theft and privacy violations. For this reason, it’s important to implement robust cybersecurity measures, such as security audits, to ensure the security of AI models.

The first step in a cybersecurity audit is to set the audit objectives, which should be limited to a reasonable scope and should correspond to the organization’s cybersecurity and protection goals. The planning and scoping process should then identify all areas and aspects of cybersecurity that need to be covered. A detailed cybersecurity audit will evaluate the organization’s overall data security, not just one element.

The Manipulation Of AI Models

AI models can be vulnerable to adversarial attacks, where attackers manipulate the input data to cause the model to make incorrect decisions. This can result in serious consequences, such as financial losses, data theft and privacy violations. For this reason, it’s important to implement robust cybersecurity measures, such as security audits, to ensure the security of AI models.

The first step in a cybersecurity audit is to set the audit objectives, which should be limited to a reasonable scope and should correspond to the organization’s cybersecurity and protection goals. The planning and scoping process should then identify all areas and aspects of cybersecurity that need to be covered. A detailed cybersecurity audit will evaluate the organization’s overall data security, not just one element.