IBM has updated its Guardium platform to optimize protections for security threats stemming from the current tech environment: “shadow AI” and quantum exposure. The new IBM Guardium Data Security Center leverages tools from both IBM Guardium AI Security and IBM Guardium Quantum Safe, allowing for cross-environment protection with unified controls in a single dashboard. Data monitoring and governance, data detection and response, data and AI security posture management and cryptography management to deflect quantum attacks can now be managed from an omniscient perspective, allowing security teams to integrate workflows.

IBM Guardium AI Security software helps protect corporate AI deployments from security vulnerabilities and data governance policy violations “at a time when generative AI adoption — and the risk of ‘shadow AI,’ the presence of unsanctioned models — is surging,” IBM explains in a news release.

IBM Guardium Quantum Safe software helps protect encrypted data from “future cyberattacks driven by bad actors who gain access to cryptographically relevant quantum computers.” IBM Guardium Quantum Safe draws on expertise from IBM Research and IBM Consulting.

As with shadow IT, shadow AI involves employees downloading and installing apps without the approval or monitoring of the IT and security departments, leading to vulnerabilities and data leaks, SecurityWeek reports, emphasizing that “security teams can monitor and apply governance rules to what they can see, but are by definition unaware of shadow AI implementations.”

As AI models gain popularity in the corporate IT world, “organizations need to improve their crypto-agility and carefully monitor their AI models, training data and usage,” said Akiba Saeedi, VP of security product management at IBM, as reported by SiliconANGLE.

Hybrid cloud-, AI-, and quantum-era risks expose proprietary data and critical infrastructure to new threats, requiring adaptive protection, notes IBM in the announcement about the IBM Guardiam Security Center.

The compay also added new decentralized identity features to its IBM Verify portfolio. IBM Verify Digital Credentials allows users to securely store and manage digitized versions of physical credentials such as driver’s licenses, insurance cards and employee badges.