Secure your organization against the hidden risks of AI-driven data exposure

Data exposure risks

AI's self-learning nature means that monitoring data going into AI systems is just as important as preventing leaks. Every prompt or upload risks adding sensitive data to an AI model, ranging from personal information to company secrets. About 38% of employees share confidential data with AI platforms without approval, according to research by CybSafe and the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA).
Data privacy concerns are mounting across organizations. Roughly three-quarters of respondents expressed concerns about generative AI's data privacy and security risks, according to Enterprise Strategy Group.
Among data protection concerns for AI, blocking data exfiltration and preventing personally identifiable information (PII) leakage are the top two most important issues, F5 found in the State of AI Application Strategy Report.
Organizations need inline enforcement of data protection policies. F5 AI Gateway inspects prompts and responses to identify sensitive content in real time, such as personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), and other sensitive data, with the ability to log, redact, or block content. It can also share logs with SIEM and SOAR tools to inform incident response and compliance workflows.

Data exposure risks

Shadow AI

Shadow AI sidesteps established data governance policies. Unauthorized AI tools bypass internal controls and compliance frameworks, creating blind spots in data protection strategies. About half of all employees are using shadow AI, according to a study from Software AG.
Encrypted channels hide AI data flows, creating blind spots that enable shadow AI to thrive undetected. Traditional security tools can’t keep up with high volumes of encrypted data to identify risks without significantly slowing performance.
Regulations are evolving quickly to protect people and data in the age of AI, but shadow AI often doesn’t comply. Between existing data privacy laws and new ones specific to AI, visibility and control over data being shared with AI apps is critical to maintain compliance.
F5 BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator provides comprehensive visibility into encrypted AI data flows and will be adding NIST- and PCI-recognized AI data protection and governance capabilities to enable world-class observability and management at scale. Control shadow AI and maintain regulatory compliance without performance degradation.

Shadow AI

Hybrid multicloud complexity

Hybrid environments fragment data visibility. Organizations struggle to maintain consistent data protection policies across on-premises, public cloud, and edge deployments where AI models process sensitive information.
The distributed nature of AI and lack of global standards lead to unintentional data privacy violations. Gartner predicts 40% of AI data breaches will arise from cross-border GenAI misuse by 2027, highlighting the global nature of AI data exposure risks.
Data classification in motion is challenging. Organizations need real-time capability to classify and act on sensitive data as it moves through AI systems, rather than relying on static data protection measures.
F5 solutions inspect AI data flows across hybrid multicloud environments to dynamically detect and classify sensitive data, such as PII, PHI, source code, and regulated information. Based on policy, these data flows can be redacted or blocked to ensure data never leaves the network in violation of corporate policy.

Hybrid multicloud complexity

AI-specific attack vectors

AI models and data are at risk of emerging attacker techniques that differ from typical application security threats. Malicious actors craft inputs designed to manipulate AI behavior, bypass safety controls, or extract sensitive training data, creating risks that traditional security tools cannot detect.
AI applications rely heavily on APIs for model access and data exchange, creating attack surfaces vulnerable to injection attacks, authentication bypasses, denial-of-service attempts, and costly resource overconsumption.
AI gateways are becoming essential protection tools for their ability to address AI-specific threats. 55% of respondents use or plan to use an AI gateway to protect companies from sensitive data leaks, according to the F5 2025 State of Application Strategy Report.
Comprehensive AI security requires specialized protection. The F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform provides speed, scale, and AI-specific defenses to defend against prompt injection, API attacks, and data exfiltration, enabling organizations to securely innovate with AI.

AI-specific attack vectors