Cloud Security Alliance Paper Addresses Challenges of Implementing Zero Trust in Environments Where Artificial Intelligence (AI)-induced Shadow Access Is Prevalent
May 07 2024 - 12:00PM
Business Wire
Traditional Zero Trust approaches must adapt to
the nuances of Generative AI (GenAI) technology to strengthen
cybersecurity
RSA Conference – The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the
world’s leading organization dedicated to defining standards,
certifications, and best practices to help ensure a secure cloud
computing environment, has issued a new report, Confronting Shadow
Access Risks: Considerations for Zero Trust and Artificial
Intelligence (AI) Deployments. Authored by CSA’s Identity and
Access Management Working Group, the paper examines the
intersection of Shadow Access with two of today’s most top-of-mind
technologies – Zero Trust and Artificial Intelligence – and
underscores the necessity of adapting traditional Zero Trust
approaches to the nuances of Generative AI (GenAI) technology to
mitigate AI-induced Shadow Access vulnerabilities and strengthen
cybersecurity in an evolving landscape.
“The integration of modern Gen AI components like Large Language
Models (LLM), Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), and Vector
databases introduces non-human entities, posing significant shadow
access control risks to enterprise data stored in the cloud.
Organizations of all sizes are awakening to the realization that
they have to reassess their Zero Trust posture as their once-secure
foundations have quietly transformed into vulnerable ones,” said
Venkat Raghavan, a lead author of the paper and startup CEO. “The
paper provides an overview of access control and Zero Trust issues
within the cloud-based AI stack and best practices to ensure a
safer cloud AI ecosystem.”
Shadow Access, a growing concern in cloud computing, is often
intensified by the complexities stemming from modern technological
environments and inadequate access-privilege management. Whereas a
growing number of organizations are embracing the principles of
Zero Trust, with its philosophy of "Never Trust, Always Verify,"
they are simultaneously encountering significant challenges in
fully implementing it in cloud-native architectures where Shadow
Access is prevalent.
“Until all Shadow Access is removed, the Zero Trust end-state
can't exist. Therefore, it’s critically important that, as
enterprises continue on their cloud security journey, they
understand how Shadow Access and Zero Trust are intertwined and how
the advent of GenAI and its accompanying tools has exacerbated the
problem of Shadow Access," said Ryan Gifford, Research Analyst,
Cloud Security Alliance. “As more companies embrace GenAI, the
Working Group felt it was important to shed light on the challenges
Shadow Access poses to Zero Trust and provide a path to Zero
Trust’s successful implementation.”
The paper offers key takeaways such as:
- An overview of Shadow Access, Zero Trust, GenAI, and Large
Language Models
- The impacts of Shadow Access on Zero Trust
- How Zero Trust can be leveraged to mitigate Shadow Access
Download Confronting Shadow Access Risks: Considerations for
Zero Trust and Artificial Intelligence Deployments.
About Cloud Security Alliance
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the world’s leading
organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best
practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment. CSA
harnesses the subject matter expertise of industry practitioners,
associations, governments, and its corporate and individual members
to offer cloud security-specific research, education, training,
certification, events, and products. CSA's activities, knowledge,
and extensive network benefit the entire community impacted by
cloud — from providers and customers to governments, entrepreneurs,
and the assurance industry — and provide a forum through which
different parties can work together to create and maintain a
trusted cloud ecosystem. For further information, visit us at
www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter
@cloudsa.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240507187009/en/
Kristina Rundquist ZAG Communications for CSA
kristina@zagcommunications.com