Sophos Launches AI Defense to Expose Shadow AI and Secure AI Use in Real Time
Sophos announced the general availability of Sophos AI
Defense, which finds the AI tools employees and applications are using,
including the ones security teams never approved, and enforces policy wherever
they run. Every AI tool an organization can’t see is a potential gap in
confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Delivered through Sophos Fusion,
the AI-native cybersecurity defense system, Sophos AI Defense connects controls
on the device, across the network, at sign-in, and in the browser into one line
of defense, so teams can safely adopt AI faster without adding another
disconnected tool to manage.
Attackers see the same opportunity in AI that businesses do.
This year alone, Sophos X-Ops has tracked an attacker using AI agents inside a
customer’s network to build and test nearly 80 malware modules; threat actors
selling brokered API keys for frontier AI models; underground forums trading
jailbreak techniques; and criminal recruiters seeking AI prompt engineers.
Most organizations already have AI running that they never
approved. Sixty-nine percent suspect or have evidence that employees are using
unsanctioned Agents and AI tools,1 82% have discovered shadow AI agents in
their environments in the past year,2 and 90% of IT leaders are concerned about
shadow AI risk.3 The problem is about to scale, with IDC projecting 1.3 billion
AI agents by 2028.4
Each of those agents and tools is both a new attack surface
and a new way for sensitive data to leave the business. Sophos AI Defense pulls
signals from the device, network, identity, and browser layers to map AI
activity across an environment, then weighs who is acting, how they’re
behaving, and what data is involved to separate routine use from activity that
warrants action. Real-time guardrails, designed to help prevent sensitive data
exposure, inspect prompts, uploads, and other AI interactions as they happen.
That activity also flows into the Sophos Fusion system, so security teams using
Sophos XDR, along with Sophos MDR analysts, can investigate and respond through
the workflows they already know.
“Organizations are adopting AI faster than they can secure
it, and most security teams can’t answer three basic questions: which AI tools
are running, what data is going into them, and whether that activity lines up
with policy,” said Kyle Falkenhagen, senior vice president of product
management, Sophos. “Sophos AI Defense gives security teams that visibility and
the control to act on it, so they can say yes to AI and know exactly what
they’re saying yes to.”
Because Sophos AI Defense runs on Sophos Fusion,
under-resourced security teams can activate AI security from day one, and
managed service providers (MSPs) gain a new capability to deliver across their
customer base. The launch comes during Cybersecurity Awareness Month, as safe
AI adoption moves up the agenda for organizations of every size.
“Our customers started asking how we were using AI and how we
were protecting it,” said Anthony Bender, CTO at Empyreal Logistics. “We didn't
have a good answer. We had no way to block and regulate the use of unsanctioned
AI tools. We now have a handle on how we want our employees to use AI, and we
can show our customers we are doing what we are saying. Now when our customers
ask, we have a great answer for them.”
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