The CISO's Guide to OWASP AI Security: From Principles to Practice
Bridging the Gap Between Framework and Firewalls
While the AI landscape shifts rapidly toward Agentic Systems, the foundational security requirements for AI remain rooted in rigorous governance, threat modeling, and data protection.
The OWASP AI Security Exchange has established itself as the definitive open standard for understanding these risks. This guide serves as a CISO-level companion to the official OWASP documentation, translating their comprehensive controls into actionable strategies for security leaders.
Why This Matters Now
Organizations are rushing to adopt AI, often bypassing standard security lifecycles. This guide helps you re-establish control by mapping OWASP's guidelines to critical business needs.
Guide Structure
This whitepaper breaks down the vast OWASP body of knowledge into focused, implementable sessions:
- Governance & General Controls: Establishing the AI Management System (ISO 42001) and defining the "AI Lifecycle" for security.
- Threats Through Use: A deep dive into Prompt Injection, Manipulation, and the specific risks of GenAI interactions.
- Development-Time Threats: Securing the supply chain, training data, and engineering environment against poisoning and theft.
- Runtime Application Security: Protecting the model infrastructure from theft, inversion, and conventional attacks.
- AI Security Testing: Implementing Red Teaming, automated scanning, and continuous validation.
- Privacy & Data Protection: Managing privacy risks in training data, RAG systems, and user interactions.
- Operational Checklist: A summarized checklist for immediate implementation.
The Relationship to Agentic Security
Think of this OWASP guide as the Foundation. It covers the risks inherent to any AI system (LLMs, predictive models, classifiers).
Our companion whitepaper, Navigating the Security Landscape of Agentic AI, builds upon this foundation to address the specific complexities of autonomous agents (tools, non-determinism, identity).
Recommendation: Start here to secure your foundation, then move to the Agentic guide as your maturity increases.
Continue to the next section: Governance & General Controls