Application programming interface company Akto Io Inc. today announced the launch of GenAI Security Testing, a new solution aimed at enhancing the security of generative artificial intelligence and large language models.

Claimed to be the world’s first proactive generative AI security testing platform, the new service has been designed to address growing concerns around the vulnerabilities associated with the deployment of AI and related services.

Akto argues that as the adoption of AI and LLMs in business has skyrocketed, driven by a desire for more efficient, automated workflows, new threats have emerged, such as unauthorized prompt injections, denial-of-service attacks and data inaccuracies due to overreliance on AI outputs without proper verification. As hackers continue to find more creative ways to exploit LLMs, the need has arisen for security teams to discover a new, automated way to secure LLMs at scale.

AKto’s GenAI Security Testing solution identifies vulnerabilities in the security measures for sanitizing the output of LLMs. The service detects attempts to inject malicious code for remote execution, cross-site scripting and other attacks that could allow attackers to extract session tokens and system information. Akto also tests whether the LLMs are susceptible to generating false or irrelevant reports.

The solution offers several features, including over 60 test cases that cover various aspects of GenAI vulnerabilities, such as prompt injection, overreliance on specific data sources and more. Akto’s generative AI security experts have developed the test cases to ensure the highest level of protection for organizations deploying generative AI models.

“The tests try to exploit LLM vulnerabilities through different encoding methods, separators and markers,” said Ankush Jain, chief technology officer at Akto. “This specially detects weak security practices where developers encode the input or put special markers around the input.”

Akto is a venture capital-backed startup, having raised $4.5 million in funding, according to Tracxn. Investors include Accel Partners Inc., Akshay Kothari, co-founder and chief operating officer of Notion Labs Inc., Tenable Inc. co-founder Renaud Deraison and Sentry Inc. Chief Executive Milin Desai.

Image: Akto