PurpleSec

Your AI Just Agreed To Wire $50,000 To A Fake Vendor (Here's How It Happened)

Last month, a mid-sized consulting firm’s AI assistant approved a $50,000 wire to a fake vendor. The email seemed legit, invoices matched, and the AI cross-checked everything—until the money vanished in a social engineering exploit.

This isn’t rare.

Malicious actors are mastering AI manipulation, turning your helpful tools into unwitting accomplices for data leaks, payment fraud, and multi-system attacks.

In this week's newsletter, we break down the quiet drift of AI compromise and reveal the 5 early warnings every leader must spot.

Here's what you need to know:

Rule-Breaking Behavior: AI ignores safety guardrails, like a chatbot leaking confidential data or approving inappropriate content via prompt injection.

Unexpected Leaks: Progressive questioning extracts sensitive info across systems, from database structures to internal codenames—watch for boundary violations.

Weird Performance Spikes: Off-hours delays or load surges (4.2x more likely for attacks) signal hidden adversarial instructions taxing your LLM.

Strategic Probing: "How do I..." queries or role-playing prompts ("act as admin") precede 73% of exposures, often with urgency or authority tricks.

Attack Chain Integration: Extracted data fuels broader threats, amplified by shadow AI—97% of breaches tie to poor access controls, hiking costs by $670K on average.

Layered Defense: Baseline behaviors, real-time monitoring, and tools like PromptShield™ fuse anomaly detection with OWASP-aligned blocking to secure LLMs without slowing innovation.

Read the full story: purplesec.us/newsletter/your-ai-just-agreed-to-wir…

2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 0

PurpleSec

Why Current AI Security Frameworks Aren't Good Enough:

Early this week, we released a video discussing why governance and AI security frameworks are the most important first step when securing AI.


In this week's newsletter, we take a look at why current AI security frameworks are falling short in protecting against the unique risks of modern AI systems. Traditional frameworks, built for static systems, can't keep up with AI's dynamic, adaptive nature. Imagine an attacker embedding hidden instructions in an email that tricks an AI like Microsoft 365 Copilot into leaking sensitive data, without ever bypassing network defenses.



Or consider the real-world consequences from fatal autonomous vehicle accidents to manipulative chatbots leading to romance scams and emotional harm.



These risks are not hypothetical—they're happening now.



Here’s what you need to know to stay ahead:



1/ Intent-Based Attacks: Unlike traditional malware, modern AI attacks use language and context, like the EchoLeak vulnerability in Microsoft 365 Copilot, to manipulate systems without code.

2/ Human-Centric Risks: AI decisions now impact financial, health, and emotional outcomes, with documented cases of harm, including fatalities and psychological distress.

3/ Framework Shortcomings: Standards like ISO/IEC 27001 and NIST lack the operational depth to address AI’s unique risks, leaving 74% of organizations reporting AI-related breaches in 2024.

4/ Business-First Approach: Effective AI security must integrate seamlessly with development, prioritizing speed, automation, and adaptability to keep pace with innovation.

Read the full story: purplesec.us/newsletter/current-ai-security-framew…

2 months ago | [YT] | 1

PurpleSec

In our latest Newsletter, we explore the growing threat of malicious prompts, which are hidden commands exploiting our trust.

Malicious prompts prey on our need for quick fixes.

Imagine copying a "helpful" Stack Overflow command late at night, or an AI prompt from X that claims to be the "silver bullet" of all prompts.

Next thing you know, your system is compromised.

These attacks are real and happen daily with SMBs in the attackers' crosshairs.

Here’s what you need to know to stay ahead of these threats:

1. AI Vulnerabilities: Prompt injections, ranked the #1 AI security threat by OWASP, affect 31 of 36 tested apps, risking data leaks or manipulated outputs.

2. Code Repositories: Research shows 15.4% of 1.3 million Android apps inherit flaws from copied snippets, spreading to thousands of GitHub projects.


3. Social Media Scams: From Discord token thefts to clipboard hijacks, attackers use trusted platforms to trick users into running malicious scripts.

Read our insights: purplesec.us/newsletter/copy-paste-at-your-own-ris…

2 months ago | [YT] | 0