The Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (“AI/ML”) risk environment is in flux. One reason is that regulators are shifting from AI safety to AI innovation approaches, as a recent DataPhiles post examined. Another is that the privacy and cybersecurity risks such technologies pose, which this post refers to as adversarial machine learning (“AML”) risk, differ from those posed by pre-AI/ML technologies, especially considering advances in agentic AI. That newness means that courts, legislatures, and regulators are unlikely to have experience with such risk, creating the type of unknown unknowns that keep compliance departments up at night.

This post addresses that uncertainty by examining illustrative adversarial machine learning attacks from the National Institute of Standards and Technology AML taxonomy and explaining why known attacks create novel legal risk. It further explains why existing technical solutions need to be supplemented by legal risk reduction strategies. Such strategies include asking targeted questions in diligence contexts, risk-shifting contractual provisions and ensuring that AI policies address AML. Each can help organizations clarify and reduce the legal uncertainty AML threats create.Continue Reading Adversarial Machine Learning in Focus: Novel Risks, Straightforward Legal Approaches

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been a leading voice in cybersecurity standards since 2013, when President Obama’s Executive Order on Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity tasked NIST, which is embedded within the Department of Commerce, with developing and updating a cybersecurity framework for reducing cyber risks to critical infrastructure. The first iteration of that framework was released in 2014, and Versions 1.1 and 2.0 followed in 2018 and 2024. NIST guidance has also expanded to include a privacy framework, released in 2020, and an AI risk management framework, released in 2023. This year, NIST made updates to both its cybersecurity and AI risk management frameworks and created a holistic data governance model that aims to provide a comprehensive approach for entities to address issues like data quality, privacy, security, and compliance, leveraging the various NIST frameworks under a unified data governance structure to help framework users address broader organizational risks. A retrospective of these developments and predictions for 2025 are detailed in this post.Continue Reading A Very Merry NISTmas: 2024 Updates to the Cybersecurity and AI Framework

On February 26, 2024, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) released version 2.0 of its Cybersecurity Framework (“CSF 2.0”)—the first significant update to the cybersecurity guidance since its initial publication a decade ago.[1] While the original guidance was tailored to critical infrastructure entities, the new version has a broader scope and applies to organizations of all sizes across industries, from large corporations with robust data protection infrastructure to small schools and nonprofits that may lack cybersecurity sophistication.[2] CSF 2.0 notably incorporates new sections on corporate governance responsibilities and supply chain risks; additionally, NIST has released supplemental implementation guides and reference tools that can assist organizations measure cybersecurity practices and hone data protection priorities.[3]Continue Reading NIST Publishes Long-Awaited Cybersecurity Framework 2.0