Data Protection in a Shadow AI World

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These AI-powered apps drive productivity and speed up project completion, or show how far LLMs can go in solving a complex DevOps problem. While shadow AI apps are typically not malicious, they can consume cloud storage, increase storage costs, pose network threats, and lead to data leaks.

How can IT departments gain visibility into shadow AI? It makes sense to strengthen the practices used to mitigate shadow IT risks, with the caveat that LLMs can make anyone a citizen developer. At the same time, the volume of applications and data generated is increasing significantly. This means a more complex data protection task for IT teams, who must observe, monitor, learn, and then act.

The output of shadow AI must be discovered, analyzed, and subject to the same security policies that apply to other data workloads in the enterprise. Ensuring that data discovery, monitoring, and policy enforcement tools are operating at peak performance is a critical first step. Analysts can use AI-powered automation tools running 24/7 to flag unusual behavior and help prevent data privacy and compliance breaches.

AI insights also require innovative approaches due to the nepal mobile database volume of data being processed and generated, which if left unchecked could leave an organization at risk of breaching data privacy regulations. So-called “confidential computing” is one approach that some companies are taking. Essentially, it involves encrypting data as it is being processed, so that sensitive and private data cannot be exposed. It is a way to ensure that the data used and/or generated by shadow AI applications is not at risk.

Remote Shadow AI Adds Complexity
Current market statistics suggest that remote work will remain a viable option for the foreseeable future. Various research forecasts show that a significant portion of the IT workforce, especially those with application development and AI skills, are driving this trend. Other fields such as medicine, healthcare, accounting, finance, and marketing also have a significant presence of remote work. All of these professions have the opportunity to become shadow AI practitioners, as generative AI is readily available.