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Confronting Shadow Access Risks: Considerations for Zero Trust and Artificial Intelligence Deployments
Confronting Shadow Access Risks: Considerations for Zero Trust and Artificial Intelligence Deployments
Who it's for:
  • IAM professionals
  • Cloud and cybersecurity professionals

Confronting Shadow Access Risks: Considerations for Zero Trust and Artificial Intelligence Deployments

Release Date: 05/06/2024

Working Group: AI Safety

Shadow Access, a growing concern within cloud computing and Identity and Access Management (IAM), refers to unintended, unauthorized access to systems and data, often intensified by the complexities of modern technological environments. Organizations from small to large often find out the hard way that their previously secure starting point has silently evolved into an unsecure one, the consequences of which are potentially catastrophic. Adding an additional dimension, the increasing prevalence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) introduces new Shadow Access risks, such as unauthorized access, sensitive data exposure, and governance issues.

Zero Trust, centered on the philosophy of “Never Trust, Always Verify,” is positioned as a countermeasure to Shadow Access, advocating for robust authentication and vigilant access control. However, the practical implementation of Zero Trust faces challenges in cloud-native architectures where Shadow Access is prevalent. 

This publication by the CSA Identity and Access Management Working Group delves into these intersections of Shadow Access, AI, and Zero Trust, and underscores the necessity of adapting traditional Zero Trust IAM approaches to the nuances of AI technology.

Key Takeaways: 
  • What Shadow Access is and why it exists
  • What Zero Trust is
  • The impacts of Shadow Access on Zero Trust 
  • What Zero Trust can do to mitigate Shadow Access 
  • The top concerns regarding Shadow Access, AI, and LLMs, including change management, data access visibility, identity verification, content authorization, and more
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Acknowledgements

Michael Roza
Michael Roza
Risk, Audit, Control and Compliance Professional at EVC

Michael Roza

Risk, Audit, Control and Compliance Professional at EVC

Michael Roza is a seasoned risk, audit, control and compliance, and cybersecurity professional with over 20 years of experience across multinational enterprises and startups. As a Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Research member for over 10 years, he has led and contributed to more than 140 CSA projects spanning Zero Trust, AI, IoT, Top Threats, DecSecOps, Cloud Key Management, Cloud Control Matrix, and many others.

He has co-chaired...

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