Artificial intelligence has had a transformative impact across many industries. But not all of its uses are legitimate. While AI has changed how SaaS companies operate, it’s also introduced new security vulnerabilities for bad actors to exploit. You’ll need the right tools and strategies to protect your business from these evolving threats.
One way to get there is by partnering with an AI security consultant. They’re specialists who can help you identify and address security risks posed by AI systems. This can protect your brand’s reputation, help it benefit from AI tools, and create the safe foundation you’ll need to grow.
But not all experts are equally valuable. This guide will help you find the best AI security risk consulting service for your company’s unique needs.
What Is AI Security Consulting?
AI security consulting is the practice of assessing, mitigating, and managing the risks posed by artificial intelligence systems. It combines core cybersecurity principles with specialized knowledge of AI and machine learning. Cybersecurity consultants use their unique skillset to help companies:
- Find security vulnerabilities in AI tools, models, and pipelines
- Protect training data and outputs from malicious interference
- Ensure compliance with key regulations like the GDPR, NIST, and EU AI Act
- Establish internal policies and controls for safe AI use
AI tools have opened powerful new opportunities for businesses. But rushing to use these without an effective security protocol in place can be dangerous. You might use a model with a vulnerability, leak sensitive data to bad actors, or integrate AI into your workflow in a damaging way.
That’s why AI security consulting services are worth your attention. They help you safely leverage the full potential of AI. That way, your business can enter its next phase of growth without putting its brand equity at risk in the process.
The Role of AI Security Threat Consulting in the Age of Generative AI
Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT have hidden risks that a consultant can help you manage. These include:
- Data poisoning: Bad actors can insert malicious inputs to manipulate a model’s outputs. This can lead to your business making decisions based on bad information.
- Privacy violations: Your process could also leak sensitive data used in model training scenarios. This could violate a compliance agreement and expose your company to costly fines.
- Bias and ethics risks: Undetected biases in an AI system can lead to unintentional discrimination and reputational damage. You could even face a lawsuit in an extreme situation.
- Model exploitation: Bad actors may also be able to reverse engineer sensitive information with malicious prompt injections. This could expose your company’s trade secrets and put its points of differentiation at risk.
Security consultants can help you understand and prepare for each of these risks. They’ll make sure you can safely use LLMs like Claude and ChatGPT so you can grow without assuming unnecessary risks.
Understanding the Cost of Inaction
Security consulting services come at a cost, which means they aren’t always easy to justify in a budget. But it’s also important to consider the costs of inaction. In other words, what is your company risking by using AI without a proper security posture?
Examples include:
- Financial damages: You can lose business after a breach, and may face up to millions in fines if you’re non-compliant with key regulations.
- Operational disruption: AI-driven breaches can lead to model downtime, data loss, and forced shutdowns. This can eat into your company’s profitability, potentially significantly.
- Loss of customer trust: AI security incidents can also damage your brand’s reputation. This can lead to lost loyalty, fewer new customers, and slower growth.
- Legal consequences: Your company could also face regulatory scrutiny or a lawsuit in the wake of an AI security issue.
The average cost of a data breach in the United States is now $9.36 million. AI security consultants can protect your company from facing one of these events. This can be worth millions of dollars. So, whether you hire a consultant or not, this is a figure to keep in mind moving forward.
Key Components of AI Security Management Consulting
So, what kind of support will you get from an AI consultant? It can vary based on your organizational needs. However, consultants often help businesses with:
- Risk governance and strategy: Aligning your company’s use of AI with corporate risk policies. For example, limiting the maximum financial risk of using an LLM by creating safe use standards for employees.
- Regulatory framework integration: You may want to adopt something like the NIST AI Risk Management Framework to make your company stand out to potential partners. A consultant can help your company change in whatever ways it needs to earn the certification.
- Monitoring and detection: Consultants can also design or implement tools for detecting suspicious behavior. This can help you catch rare generative AI issues before they have the chance to impact your business.
- Model testing: Security consultants can also test your model to see how it performs in different scenarios. This helps you find and solve edge cases that an adversary may try to exploit.
- Data security and privacy: Finally, consultants can apply encryption, anonymize data, and bring more user privacy to your AI system. This can help you avoid fines and keep users happy.
You may want help in all of these areas or just a few. Either way, Trava has you covered with bespoke AI risk management services designed around your unique needs.
What Makes a Great AI Security Consultant?
AI has a lot of hype right now, and you’ll find no shortage of security professionals trying to cash in. That’s why it’s crucial to look carefully for an AI security consultant. You want to make sure you hire someone who truly specializes in the field, not an opportunist trying to make a quick buck.
Following this process will help you avoid the fakes and find the right fit for your team.
Practical Skills
First, AI security consultants have practical expertise at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity. That often includes:
- Model evaluation and threat analysis: The ability to audit models for vulnerabilities, bias, and risk. Consultants should know how to probe LLMs for weaknesses, where to look for them, and how to fix any issues spotted.
- AI-specific risk modeling: You also want a consultant who can apply AI-specific threat models, not just general cybersecurity ones. This will allow them to provide more tailored assessments based on the unique risks posed by artificial intelligence.
- Security automation and monitoring: Look for experts who can monitor AI behavior in production, looking for model drift, abuse patterns, and policy violations, among other factors.
- Secure integrations: Your consultant should also know how to integrate AI and machine learning tools with other platforms without increasing risk in the process.
- AI-based data privacy: Finally, look for consultants who have specialized skills in data privacy for AI systems. That could mean asking about a consultant’s experience with federated learning or homomorphic encryption, among other specialized topics.
The Right Background and Credentials
Skills aren’t always easy to measure in an interview setting. That’s why it’s also worth asking potential consultants about their background and credentials.
For example, you may want to hire a consultant with a degree in data science, machine learning, or AI research. This would be a good sign that they have sufficient background knowledge to support your company.
It’s also worth asking consultants about any cybersecurity certifications they have. Some of the most useful for this kind of work include:
- CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)
- CCSP (Certified Cloud Security Professional)
- OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional)
Finally, focus on groups that have experience helping companies reach AI framework standards. This shows they can help your business do the same. But doesn’t guarantee it. So, consider asking for case studies and sample deliverables like threat models or policy frameworks before signing any contracts.
An Integrated Approach
Another factor to consider is that your AI security policy won’t exist in a vacuum. It’ll likely intersect with other tools, people, and frameworks. The best AI consultants understand this and use a holistic approach to create seamless strategies that work for every department.
For example, they might help your legal and executive teams document a set of AI standards. Or they could work with your engineering group to make sure any AI restrictions won’t impact their ability to innovate. This kind of integrated approach will help you avoid common issues and get value from AI systems sooner.
So, look for consultants who value integration as much as your business does. You can figure this out by asking candidates about their approach to cross-department AI integrations. If they struggle to answer your questions or can’t think of an effective example, it may be time to look elsewhere.
Questions To Ask Candidates
Now, you know what to look for in an AI security consultant. But you’ll need to ask the right interview questions to get the information you need to make a hiring decision. These sample questions are a great place to start:
- What types of AI systems have you secured and in what industries?
- How do you assess the risk of an AI system during development and after deployment?
- What compliance frameworks have you helped other companies reach?
- Do you have sample AI security policies or governance plans you’ve written that we can review?
- How do you collaborate with internal teams?
- What visibility will we have into the risks you identify once our contract ends?
Watch out for generalized answers, vague examples, and unfamiliarity with key AI laws and frameworks. These are common signs you’re talking to a standard cybersecurity consultant instead of one who truly specializes in AI.
Check out our guide on navigating the impact of AI in cybersecurity for more context on why hiring a consultant with this specialized knowledge matters.
Trava’s AI Security Consulting Services Explained
If you’re ready to revamp your company’s AI security posture, consider consulting services from Trava. Our experts can meet your organization wherever it is today and help it move toward its goal. We can support you with:
- AI risk assessments: We’ll evaluate how exposed your organization is to AI risk, locate any vulnerabilities, and help you make the necessary changes based on your risk tolerance.
- AI framework compliance: Our team can help you meet the criteria of key cybersecurity standards like the NIST AI Risk Management framework.
- Policy creation: We can help you draft internal security policies for AI, helping you meet various framework criteria, if that’s your goal.
- Compliance consulting: We offer ongoing consulting services to help companies understand and respond to new regulations, threats, and tools.
Whether you need all of these services or only a few, our flexible plans make it easy to get the exact type of support your business needs to move forward.
Why AI Security Risk Consulting Should Be on Your Radar
AI tools have opened new possibilities for businesses and bad actors alike. The question for your company is how to leverage the technology to unlock its benefits without assuming new risks. One of the best ways is to work with an AI security risk consultant.
These experts can help you protect sensitive data, ensure ethical AI use, and stay compliant in a fast-evolving regulatory landscape. It could be just what you need to step into your next era of growth. But don’t take our word for it. Check out the resources below to learn more about AI security risk consulting from Trava.