The CISO Dilemma
How can information security leaders ensure that employee usage of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help increase organizational productivity is not putting sensitive company data or intellectual property (IP) at risk of leakage or other harm? We addressed this dilemma last week at Cisco Live in Amsterdam with the unveiling of exciting enhancements to Cisco Umbrella and Cisco Secure Access – both key components of Cisco’s Security Service Edge (SSE) product family – that allow these leaders to now:
- Discover, block, allow, or control the usage of 70 (and counting) generative AI applications, with additional granular controls for ChatGPT usage in particular
- Prevent downloads of potentially unsafe content generated in ChatGPT, such as source code that might get committed to a proprietary code repository
- Send notification emails to end users when their attempted ChatGPT data uploads or downloads are blocked, and to explain the security policy violation
Whether it’s the need to protect IP, personally identifiable information (PII), or any other private or confidential data, CISOs everywhere need to scrutinize the pros and cons of their employees using generative AI tools. It creates an opportunity to put technology, policies, and processes in place to mitigate the risks and ensure only safe usage. This means having sound data loss prevention and application control capabilities in place that enable administrators to discover organizational usage of generative AI tools, assess the risks those tools present to data security, determine whether they are safe or need to be blocked, and then block them or allow usage – either in a full or controlled capacity.
How can a CISO prevent data leaks through ChatGPT and unsafe content downloads from it?
The only ironclad way to do this is to not use ChatGPT at all. Since that’s likely not the way of the future as most organizations increase their understanding of the risks vs. the rewards of using it, however, a better and more forward-thinking approach for the CISO would be to focus instead on how to mitigate risks toward ensuring its safe usage. The data loss prevention (DLP) and application visibility and control capabilities of the cloud access security broker (CASB) in both Umbrella and Secure Access can help.
Discover ChatGPT usage
It is often said that the first purpose of a CASB is to enable visibility of shadow IT activity so that security admins can better understand which cloud applications its organization’s users are accessing – or trying to access. Umbrella CASB includes ChatGPT in its application database for discovery purposes and designates it as high-risk because of how easily corporate intellectual property (IP) and other sensitive information can be leaked through it. A security admin can see who is using it, how frequently, and where.
Assess ChatGPT usage risk
Having a DLP “monitor” rule for “all destinations” enables security admins to understand how ChatGPT is being used in their organization. An existing rule in Umbrella will automatically recognize ChatGPT without need for reconfiguration, but admins can also create a very specific new rule comprised of the most concerning types of data classifications to help them better identify events, volume of usage, and more detail about that usage. This better understanding of ChatGPT risk and usage can help inform any changes needed to DLP policy.
Block ChatGPT usage
ChatGPT is not just discoverable in either Umbrella or Secure Access, but also controllable thanks in part to a Generative AI control function in Application Settings, and it can be blocked through both DNS-layer security policy and secure web gateway (SWG) policy. Heavily regulated and risk-averse organizations that often have numerous compliance requirements will find this capability particularly helpful, as will many software companies that need safeguards in place to protect source code.
Allow safe ChatGPT usage
Ensuring safe usage – and, more importantly and specifically, determining for what purposes to allow it through the same Generative AI control function – can increase employee productivity without sacrificing data security. The DLP functionality in both Umbrella and Secure Access provides this clarity to help thoughtfully manage ChatGPT risk.
To protect your source code, the built-in source code identifier in both Cisco products detects any of almost 30 programming languages, and it will prevent code uploads. You can apply this to specific users, or to specific groups in the organization. A second option is to use indexed document matching (IDM) to fingerprint source code and gain super accurate detection of it in real time to also prevent uploads. A third option is to use the Generative AI content control functionality available in both products, which monitors responses and can block the download of ChatGPT-generated content that might be deemed unsafe. This could include ChatGPT-generated source code, which could be faulty, and which could therefore pose harm if committed to a proprietary source code repository.
What is the takeaway?
There’s no question that generative AI tools prevalence will increase over time, accompanied by constant scrutiny of the risks and rewards of leveraging them. By having correctly configured DLP rules in Umbrella or Secure Access, CISOs and security admins alike can enjoy peace of mind knowing that ChatGPT usage is happening in such a way that the risk of confidential company information being leaked is mitigated.
What should you do next?
If you’re already using Umbrella DNS Security Essentials or DNS Security Advantage, you can start managing ChatGPT risk at the DNS-layer today. If you don’t have the advanced data loss prevention and application control capabilities that come with the more robust Umbrella SIG Essentials (as an add-on) or SIG Advantage (standard), visit our packages comparison page to learn more about them, and then talk to your Cisco account team about upgrading. You can also get started directly with Secure Access, which includes the core functionality of Umbrella SIG, along with ZTNA and digital experience management, for a robust, integrated, and seamless SSE experience from the start.
Watch our on-demand AI Risk vs. Reward: The CISO Dilemma webinar, which includes over 15 minutes of product demo. For a more comprehensive overview of either Umbrella or Secure access, click on either of the on-demand demo links below.