Building a proactive security culture is crucial as generative AI advances

By Jerry Jimenez Bongco, Country General Manager at AWS Philippines 

As generative artificial intelligence (AI) ushers in new capabilities that were hardly imaginable even a few years ago, businesses are quickly leveraging technology advancements to delight customers and capture new market share. Natural language processing amidst vast amounts of actionable data is enabling unprecedented innovation for application builders. Now is the time to ensure security underpins AI and other fast-proliferating new technologies to come.   

Strong security culture fosters faster, more secure innovation

Helping everyone within an organization view security as a business enabler, rather than a hindrance, helps reduce risk while reinforcing resilience. Strong security measures empower companies to innovate faster and with greater confidence. Security teams and organizational leadership can work together to understand business needs and put the necessary protections in place to enable their businesses to grow. This perspective shift is crucial to unlocking the benefits of exploring transformative technologies like generative AI.

When adopting generative AI, implementing strong encryption measures and giving users control over their data can address privacy concerns associated with AI applications. The AWS Nitro System is designed so that no one (including anyone at AWS) can access the underlying data, workloads, or infrastructure running on customers’ Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) servers. Companies should seek out AI infrastructure and services with built-in security features that offer this level of control.

Generative AI can also make the user experience easier and more efficient for security-minded customers. AI-powered tools can assist IT and security administrators in identifying and resolving issues more efficiently. For instance, natural language query capabilities can simplify the analysis of security logs and activity events. A new capability recently added to AWS CloudTrail Lake allows security admins to ask questions using natural language, such as “What caused this error?”. Other innovations such as a new framework for AWS Audit Manager helps customers gain insights about how they’re using generative AI, including flagging sensitive data and tracking how AI model usage and permissions.

“In order to make these technologies transformative, we have to think about security across all three layers of our genAI stack: the bottom layer provides the tools for building and training large language models (LLMs) and foundational models (FMs), the middle layer provides access to all the models along with tools you need to build and scale generative AI applications, and the top layer includes applications that use LLMs and other FMs to make work stress-free by writing and debugging code, generating content, and sharing insights,” says Orlando Scott-Cowley, EMEA public sector tech and business development manager at AWS. “Raising the bar on security across each layer of the stack is our top priority.” 

Effective security is proactive and collaborative

To foster a robust security culture, companies should distribute responsibility throughout their organizations. From the CEO to developers, every employee plays a role in maintaining security. This approach helps ensure that security considerations are integrated into all aspects of operations, from product development to daily meetings. A proactive security outlook is essential in today’s threat landscape, as is nailing the security basics.

Fundamental security practices include multi-factor authentication, for example, which remains a critical yet underutilized security measure. Recently, AWS Identity and Access Management (a tool used to manage identities and access when using AWS services) now supports passkeys as a second method for authentication that is significantly more secure than a password alone.

Security is a business imperative 

Finally, companies must commit to continuous security innovation. The cybersecurity landscape is ever-evolving, and businesses need to stay ahead of emerging threats. This requires ongoing investment in security technologies and a culture that prioritizes security at every level of the organization. By adopting these principles, businesses can create a security culture that not only protects against current threats but also positions them to navigate the challenges of emerging technologies securely. In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, a strong security foundation is not just a safeguard—it’s a competitive advantage.