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Microsoft develops Spotlighting to protect AI systems from attacks
It will significantly reduce the success rate of attacks
3 min. read
Published onApril 15, 2024
published onApril 15, 2024
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The last few years have witnessed tremendous AI integration, with Microsoft leading the charge. At the same time, the Redmond-based tech giant is taking steps to minimize threats and protect AI-based systems. In a bid to achieve that, Microsoft developedSpotlighting!
Spotlightingis actually a family of techniques that reduces the success rate of attacks on AI systems from20%to under the detection threshold without affecting performance. Microsoft describesSpotlightingas
Spotlighting helps againstPoisoned content, a type of attack that uses seemingly harmless content to exploit vulnerabilities in the AI system. For instance, an email which, when summarised, would issue instructions to the AI system to search for critical information and share it.
In such cases, Microsoft’sSpotlightingprevents LLMs from reading hidden content that contains instructions for an attack, thus protecting the AI system.
Microsoft discovers a new attack type, Crescendo
Crescendoor multiturn LLM jailbreak is an attack capable of bypassing existing security filters and can affect most of the popular LLMs, although it poses no privacy or security risks to the end users or AI systems.
Microsoft’sofficial blogdescribesCrescendoas,
The Redmon-based tech giant made changes to the native chatbot,Microsoft Copilot, to prevent it from falling prey toCrescendo. This includes introducing additional filtering and security layers, namely,Multiturn prompt filter,AI Watchdog, andAdvanced research.
The findings were also shared with other AI companies. You can read more aboutCrescendoinMicrosoft’s research paper.
AI, while a groundbreaking innovation, poses a wide array of threats, both to end users and organizations.Microsoft’s President, Brad Smith, expressed concerns about AIin a recent interview and called for regulations and a safety brake.
AI is also behind sophisticated cyberattacksthat are difficult to detect and can cause significant damage. Microsoft believesAI is the best way to fight AI-backed threats, and it appears to be the case at present!
What do you think about Microsoft’sSpotlightingand if it could mitigate risks? Share with our readers in the comments section.
More about the topics:artificial intelligence,microsoft
Kazim Ali Alvi
Windows Hardware Expert
Kazim has always been fond of technology, be it scrolling through the settings on his iPhone, Android device, or Windows PC. He’s specialized in hardware devices, always ready to remove a screw or two to find out the real cause of a problem.
Long-time Windows user, Kazim is ready to provide a solution for your every software & hardware error on Windows 11, Windows 10 and any previous iteration. He’s also one of our experts in Networking & Security.
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Kazim Ali Alvi
Windows Hardware Expert
Kazim is specialized in hardware devices, always ready to remove a screw or two to find out the real cause of a problem.
