Cloudflare, Inc., the well-established connectivity cloud company, has declared its newest line of defence against cyber attacks this month: the Firewall for AI. This initiative will act as a protective layer, recognising abuse and attacks on Large Language Models (LLMs) before they can cause significant damage. With the escalating evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI), this kind of safeguarding measure could help tackle the imminent wave of AI-enabled cyber threats.

LLMs are intricate AI applications that interpret human language and data. Amplified by the robustness of Cloudflare's extensive global network, Firewall for AI puts the company at the forefront of security providers prepared to counter attacks on AI, particularly those targeting the functionality and trade secrets within LLMs.

A recent study suggested that only a quarter of top-tier executives are confident their organisations can effectively address AI risks, demonstrating the widespread uncertainty about managing the security implications of this emerging technology. Due to their design, LLMs present a unique challenge when it comes to implementing effective security measures. They allow varied user interactions and generate diverse outputs for the same input, leaving ample scope for threat actors to tamper with these systems, triggering abuse, attacks, and potentially compromising critical data.

Matthew Prince, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Cloudflare, commented: "When new types of applications emerge, new types of threats follow quickly. That's no different for AI-powered applications." He also highlighted the role of Cloudflare’s Firewall for AI in protecting AI models and ensuring businesses can utilise the opportunities unlocked by AI advancements while being safe from potential risks.

Featuring Firewall for AI, security teams can quickly identify and automatically block new threats without requiring human intervention, making this service particularly efficient. Customers using LLMs on Cloudflare’s Workers AI can secure their applications against vulnerabilities that could be weaponised against their AI models, paving the way for robust protection against AI-driven cyber attacks. The service can detect attempts to exploit a model and extract data. Additionally, being built on top of Cloudflare's global network, Firewall for AI is deployed close to the end-user and offers immediate protection against potential threats.

For any customer running an LLM on Cloudflare’s Workers AI, Firewall for AI will provide default security for free. This can help assuage growing concerns about issues such as prompt injection and data leakage that can potentially compromise AI applications.

Citing a Gartner report on AI security, "You cannot secure a GenAI application in isolation. Always start with a solid foundation of cloud security, data security and application security, before planning and deploying GenAI-specific security controls." Cloudflare's Firewall for AI promises to add extra layers of protection on top of its existing comprehensive security platform, countering dangers posed by emerging technology head-on.