Cisco Introduces AI Defense to Facilitate AI Transformation in Enterprises

Cisco has launched ‘Cisco AI Defense,’ a solution designed to enable and secure AI transformation in business environments.

Cisco AI Defense directly addresses two critical challenges associated with AI transformation- Secure Development and Deployment of AI Applications and Securing Access to AI Applications.

“Business and technology leaders can’t afford to sacrifice safety for speed when embracing AI,” said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco. “In a dynamic landscape where competition is fierce, speed decides the winners. Fused into the fabric of the network, Cisco AI Defens combines the unique ability to detect and protect against threats when developing and accessing AI applications without tradeoffs.”

The safety measures embedded within individual AI models, Cisco AI Defense, provide uniform controls tailored for a multi-model environment. It is self-optimizing, utilizing Cisco’s proprietary machine learning models to detect evolving AI safety and security threats, informed by threat intelligence from Cisco Talos.

Also Read: Cisco and LTIMindtree Expand Partnership for Next-Generation Secure Access Globally

The capabilities of Cisco’s AI Defense include:

• Discovering AI: Security units need to understand who is building applications and the training sources they use. AI Defense detects shadow and sanctioned AI applications across public and private clouds.
• Model Validation: Model tuning can lead to toxic and unexpected outcomes. Automated testing checks AI models for hundreds of potential safety and security issues. This AI-driven algorithmic red team identifies potential vulnerabilities and recommends guardrails in AI Defense for security teams to use.
• Runtime Security: Continuous validation safeguards against potential safety and security threats such as prompt injection, denial of service, and sensitive data leakage on an ongoing basis.

“The adoption of AI exposes companies to new risks that traditional cybersecurity solutions don’t address,” said Kent Noyes, Global Head of AI & Cyber Innovation at World Wide Technology. “Cisco AI Defense represents a significant leap forward in AI security, providing full visibility of an enterprise’s AI assets and protection against evolving threats.”

As per Cisco, AI defense will be ready to use for enterprises in March 2025. For more information, visit cisco.com/go/ai-defense.