AndrewKao
Andrew Kao is a PhD student in economics at Harvard University. His research focuses on the political economy of new technologies, such as AI and the internet. His website is https://andrew-kao.github.io/
Session
As artificial intelligence becomes a pillar of economic and strategic power, AI labs are emerging as the next high-value targets for espionage and cyberattacks. State and corporate actors have compromised other critical sectors, such as semiconductors, aerospace, and biotechnology, for decades to steal trade secrets and shift global advantage. Leading voices are now starting to question the security of AI-related infrastructure. In this talk, we discuss findings from over 200 previous cyber and espionage incidents across various industries, shedding light on how and where the risks apply to the supply chain of AI models. We discuss the most feasible attack patterns toward sensitive assets such as model weights, training pipelines, and proprietary data. Then, we distill actionable lessons to mitigate the most pressing threats. We also demonstrate how AI-related IP theft differs from other sectors due to the extraordinary potential for economic and strategic power gains, which heighten the incentives of attackers and increase the risk to AI organizations.