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Problem-Aware

202 posts on problem-aware.

LangChain Prompt Injection: Where the Chain and Agent Abstractions Open the Surface

LangChain prompt injection surfaces in three places the framework documentation rarely highlights: the prompt template variable interpolation where user input arrives unsanitized, the agent tool output that returns to the model context, and the LangGraph state transitions that carry adversarial content across nodes. This piece walks through each surface, the framework defenses that fall short, and the inspection-layer controls that produce a deterministic decision and an audit record EU AI Act Article 12 reviewers will accept.

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RAG Prompt Injection: How the Retrieval Step Becomes the Attack Surface

RAG prompt injection turns the retrieval step into the attack surface. Adversarial content inside a retrieved document reaches the model context with the same trust level as the application instructions. The model has no architectural way to distinguish trusted spans from untrusted spans. This piece walks through the four retrieval paths that open the surface, the failure modes the model alone cannot close, and the inspection-layer controls that produce a deterministic decision and an audit record EU AI Act Article 12 reviewers will accept.

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Prompt Injection vs Jailbreak: Where the Two Attack Classes Diverge and What the Inspection Layer Enforces

Prompt injection and jailbreaking are distinct attack classes that public discussion often conflates. Jailbreaking targets the model provider safety training to produce content the provider intended to suppress. Prompt injection targets the application context boundary to override the application instructions or exfiltrate organization data. The defenses sit at different architectural layers. This piece walks through the distinction, where each defense layer fires, and the inspection-layer pattern that addresses both.

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AI Security for Product Analytics: The Inspection Layer Between the Analyst Prompt and the Customer Data Warehouse

Product analytics teams have moved a significant share of exploration onto LLMs. The analyst asks a natural-language question and the LLM emits SQL that runs against the customer data warehouse. The boundary between the analyst identity, the prompt, the generated SQL, and the warehouse result set is where the security and audit obligations sit. This piece walks through the request-time data an analyst LLM workflow reads, the identity-aware policy decisions the deployment has to commit, the audit record format that satisfies EU AI Act Article 12 and GDPR Article 22, and the architectural pattern that closes the post-authentication gap.

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How to Find Shadow AI Inside Your Organization: A Five-Source Detection Pipeline

Shadow AI lives in the browser tab next to the approved SaaS. The detection stack the security team built for shadow IT does not surface the signal. This piece walks through a five-source detection pipeline (network egress, endpoint telemetry, IdP claims, expense aggregation, approved-route gap analysis), the joining identity that ties the sources together, and the prioritization framework for triaging the patterns the pipeline surfaces.

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Shadow AI Detection Methods: The Five Detection Surfaces and Why Three of Them Miss Most Real Usage

Shadow AI detection happens on five surfaces: endpoint agents, network DNS, SSL inspection, identity provider logs, and inline AI request proxies. Endpoint, DNS, and identity logs detect attempts to reach known AI vendor domains but miss prompt content and never see browser-based usage to unsanctioned tools. SSL inspection captures content but only where TLS-break infrastructure is deployed to the AI provider domains. Inline proxies on the AI request path see identity, classification, and policy state at decision time. The five surfaces differ in what they detect and when.

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Shadow AI for CISOs: The Four Questions the Board Asks and the Records the CISO Has to Produce

Cloud Radix reports 90% of CISOs identify shadow AI as their top security concern for the year. Boards are now asking four questions that translate directly into operational records: which AI tools are in use, what data has flowed to them, what policy applied at decision time, and what was the exposure window. The CISO who can answer the four with contemporaneous records has discharged the operational duty. The CISO who reconstructs from logs after the fact has not.

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Employee ChatGPT Monitoring: The Inspection Points That Actually See Prompt Content (and the Ones That Miss It)

Employee ChatGPT usage produces five separable telemetry surfaces, and only two of them see the prompt content. Endpoint and DNS surfaces see the connection. SSL inspection and inline AI proxies see the content. SSO sees the sign-in but nothing after it. The combination of where the inspection happens and what the record contains decides whether the monitoring satisfies the operational requirement an auditor or a board would accept. Cloud Radix reports 77% of employees using unauthorized AI admit to pasting sensitive business data into prompts.

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Enterprise AI Usage Policy Template: The Eight Sections That Survive Both Workforce Adoption and Regulatory Review

An AI usage policy that an enterprise can actually enforce contains eight sections: scope and definitions, sanctioned tools list, data classification rules, role-based permissions, the disclosure obligation, the inspection and monitoring statement, the incident reporting path, and the policy version history. A policy without inspection architecture behind it leaves the enterprise with a written commitment the workforce can ignore. The eight sections align with the EU AI Act Article 26 deployer obligations and the Article 12 record-keeping mandate.

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What Is Agentic AI: The Architectural Definition, the Control-Plane Implications, and the Audit Record It Requires

Agentic AI is a software pattern where an LLM-driven agent decomposes a goal, calls tools, observes results, and iterates until the goal completes. The pattern differs from generative AI by the loop, the tool calls, and the autonomy. The control-plane implications are distinct: identity at the agent level, scoped permissions for each tool call, audit records for each step in the loop, and the question of who carries liability for the agent decisions. The NIST AI agent identity and authorization framework took comments through April 2, 2026 and set the operational baseline.

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AI Agent Privilege Abuse: Why Service Credentials Become Effective Superuser Accounts in Multi-Step Agent Workflows

A typical AI agent runs on a single service credential that combines the permissions of every action the agent might need to take. The credential is the union, not the intersection. An agent decomposing a goal can take any action the credential authorizes, including actions the user never intended to delegate. The post-authentication gap is the difference between "the agent is authenticated" and "this specific action against this specific resource is permitted by the user." Closing the gap requires identity propagation from the user through the agent to each tool call.

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Shadow AI Detection: The Three Signals That Actually Identify Unauthorized LLM Use Inside the Enterprise

Shadow AI detection works on three signals: DNS resolution to known LLM endpoints, HTTP request shape against published API contracts, and identity-bound prompt content captured at the HTTP layer. Network DLP and CASB inventories miss the prompt body because it sits inside TLS to a sanctioned destination. This piece walks through each signal, what the detection misses without inline inspection, and the architectural pattern that produces a per-request record auditors can sample.

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