AI Security / 2026 Essentials
Prevent Runaway AI Usage Before the Bill Arrives
Control requests, output size, and agent loops to protect both availability and cost.
Pay-per-use AI services can be exhausted by excessive requests or uncontrolled execution. OWASP describes unbounded consumption as a risk to availability and financial resources. Usage limits need to exist in the application, not merely as an expectation that users will behave reasonably.
What matters
- Set appropriate input, output, concurrency, and per-user request limits.
- Bound agent iterations and stop repeated unsuccessful calls.
- Monitor usage anomalies and define who can disable a feature when spending becomes abnormal.
Practical example: A public assistant limits simultaneous jobs and stops an agent that repeatedly retries the same failing search.
One action today: Set an explicit maximum number of model calls for one user task.