AI Cyber Defense / Protecting AI systems used by defenders and the business
AI Cyber Defense: Require evaluation after model or prompt changes
Gate release on authorization, tenant isolation, evidence handling and budget tests in addition to answer quality. Keep a known-good configuration available for rollback.
Environment and inputs: Enterprise AI assistants, security copilots, retrieval systems and application-controlled tool executors; framework-independent design.
Scenario and goal
A model update can change refusal, citation or tool-use behavior even when the application code is unchanged.
Why it matters
This path concerns attacks against AI-enabled systems used by the defender or business. It complements defenses against attackers who use AI as a tool. Treat model inputs, retrieved evidence and generated plans as untrusted proposals at execution boundaries. A model may assist analysis, but the application remains responsible for tenant isolation, authorization, resource budgets and the integrity of approvals and receipts.
Evidence to collect
Record effective model revision, system prompt, tool registry, retrieval settings and security evaluation results.
Validate with an authorized exercise
Run the same synthetic security fixtures before and after a staging update; reject the candidate if a previously protected boundary fails, even when general answer quality improves.
Rollout and checks
Use synthetic evidence and mocked write tools for adversarial evaluation. Version the model, prompts, tool contracts and retrieval configuration together. Keep high-impact permissions outside the model and retain an operator takeover path. When an evaluation fails, correct the enforceable boundary and rerun the same fixture rather than relying only on a stronger wording of the prompt.
Scope and limits
This guide proposes a defensive test; it is not a tested production design. Check platform support and local requirements. References explain the mechanisms but do not certify the design. Behavior alone does not prove AI involvement.