AI blast radius reduction: Varonis fortifies data security – SiliconANGLE

Even though artificial intelligence is taking the world by storm through innovations, such as ChatGPT, limiting the AI blast radius is of the essence as bad actors continue to wreak havoc.

To tame AI from exposing data, Varonis Systems Inc. deploys a policy-based automation engine that eradicates ghost users, misconfigurations and risky permissions, according to Matt Radolec (pictured), vice president of incident response and cloud operations at Varonis. 

“We have a lot of automation to help organizations first understand what that blast radius is and then start to prune it back automatically,” he stated. “We have a policy-based automation engine. What we can do is take data that might’ve been shared to your whole organization and keep the people that have been using the data and preserve their access or prune all the people that weren’t using that access.”

Radolec spoke with theCUBE Research’s Dave Vellante and Shelly Kramer at the RSA Conference, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the importance of lessening the AI blast radius and how Varonis makes this a reality. (* Disclosure below.)

How data fits into the AI blast radius picture

Just like the way banks have vaults, data should be treated the same way because this is where the treasure trove of information exists. As a result, data should be optimally safeguarded since it plays an instrumental role in taming the AI blast radius, Radolec pointed out. 

“A lot of organizations look at protecting data as something that they either need to do in motion or on their endpoints, but they’re not looking at their data warehouse,” he noted. “It’s almost like [how] a bank looks at a vault. We need to start treating our data the same way. It’s one of our most valuable assets and really focus our security attention on the vault as opposed to on these little endpoints.”

For proactive threat hunting, Varonis rolled out managed data and detection response that comes in handy in reducing the AI blast radius. This is because this solution is meant to boost data protection through an enhanced security posture, according to Radolec. 

“Why do we call it managed data detection and response?” he pointed out. “First and foremost, companies have a hard time answering the question, is my data safe? Was it accessed or exfiltrated during this event that transpired? This service aims to help you answer those questions first and then layer on the other parts of the ecosystem. Someone that has an MDDR from another provider would still tremendously benefit from an MDDR that’s focused just on their data.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the RSA Conference: 

(* Disclosure: Varonis Systems Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Varonis nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE