Introduction

AI introduces many new and exciting capabilities, but it also brings new security risks. The natural language interfaces, nondeterministic behavior, and complex data pipelines that make AI systems powerful also expand the attack surface in ways that traditional cybersecurity controls don't fully address.

In this module, you learn how AI security differs from traditional cybersecurity, explore the three-layer AI architecture model, and examine the most significant AI-specific attack techniques—including jailbreaking, prompt injection, model manipulation, data exfiltration, and overreliance. For each attack type, you also learn about the mitigation strategies that organizations use to reduce risk.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you're able to:

• Describe how AI security differs from traditional cybersecurity
• Identify the three layers of AI architecture and the security concerns at each layer
• Explain AI-specific attack techniques, including jailbreaking, prompt injection, model manipulation, data exfiltration, and overreliance
• Describe mitigation strategies for each attack type

Prerequisites

• Familiarity with basic security concepts (for example, authentication, access control, encryption)
• Familiarity with basic artificial intelligence concepts (for example, models, training, inference)