How to Prevent Your First AI Data Breach: A Guide with Data & More

As generative AI (Gen AI) copilots become increasingly prevalent in the business world, data breaches are becoming an inevitable concern. During the D&A Product Day in May? 2024, David Junge from Data & More highlighted the growing risks associated with these AI tools. This blog will explore these challenges and offer strategies to secure your data in the era of Gen AI and CoPilot in particular.

Understanding Gen AI’s Data Risk

Gen AI tools, like Microsoft 365 Copilot and Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot, are designed to enhance productivity by providing natural language answers based on internet and business content. However, these tools also introduce significant data security challenges.

The Risks

1. Overly Permissive Access: Nearly 99% of permissions are unused, and more than half of these are high-risk. Gen AI tools can access all data that users can, often surfacing sensitive information inadvertently.
2. Ease of Data Exfiltration: Insiders or malicious actors can use natural language queries to find and exfiltrate sensitive data quickly.
3. Privilege Escalation: Attackers can discover secrets for privilege escalation and lateral movement within the environment.
4. Rapid Creation of Sensitive Data: Generative AI can rapidly create new sensitive data (of real people), adding to the security burden.

How to Prevent AI Data Breaches

To mitigate these risks, organisations must take a comprehensive approach to data security before deploying Gen AI copilots. Even Microsoft points this out.

1. Get Your House in Order

Before allowing copilots to access your data, ensure you have a robust understanding of your sensitive data, its locations, and the potential exposure and risks. It is crucial to efficiently close security gaps and fix misconfigurations.

2. Focus on Permissions, Labels, and Human Activity

Permissions: Right-size user permissions and ensure that the copilot’s access reflects these permissions accurately. This minimises the risk of unauthorised data access.

Labels: Identify and label sensitive data to enforce Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies. Proper labelling ensures that sensitive information is handled with the appropriate level of security.

Human Activity: Monitor copilot usage and review any suspicious behaviour. Tracking prompts and accessed files is essential to detect and prevent potential data breaches.

3. Use Automated Tools like Data & More CoPilot Privacy

Manual efforts alone are often insufficient to secure Gen AI environments. Leverage automated tools and solutions to ensure a holistic approach to data security. Data & More offers comprehensive AI security capabilities designed to protect organisations planning to implement Gen AI.

Prevent AI Breaches with Data & More AI Entreprise Solutions

Data & More has been securing data for nearly 8 years, helping over 100,000 users worldwide protect their data privacy. Their expertise extends to securing environments that plan to implement generative AI.

Start with privacymonitor.dataandmore.com (it is free for up to 250 users)

If you're beginning your Gen AI journey, start with Data & More’s free Data Privacy Monitor. In less than 48 hours, you'll get a real-time view of your sensitive data risk, helping you determine whether you can safely adopt a Gen AI copilot. Data & More also provides industry-leading AI security solutions for Microsoft 365 Copilot and other Gen AI tools like Data & More for Purview.

To learn more, explore Data & More’s extensive AI security resources and ensure your organization is prepared for the future of AI-driven productivity.