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Course Outline

Module 1 — AI Systems for Security Engineers

Lab: Lab 01 — 01-Introduction

Understanding system architecture.

Topics:

  • Distinguishing LLMs from conventional applications
  • AI inference pipelines
  • Prompt flow mechanics
  • RAG architecture components
  • Embeddings and vector databases
  • Agentic workflow structures
  • Tool calling mechanisms
  • AI gateway functions
  • Copilot integration
  • MCP and agent protocols
  • WAF visibility scope
  • Limitations of WAF visibility

Key insight: Traditional WAFs frequently lack visibility after a prompt reaches the model. This gap necessitates specialized monitoring for government systems to ensure comprehensive security posture.

Module 2 — OWASP GenAI Top 10

Lab: none — interactive recap/discussion

Core AI attack categories.

Topics:

  • Prompt Injection
  • Insecure Output Handling
  • Training Data Poisoning
  • Model DoS
  • Supply Chain Vulnerabilities
  • Sensitive Information Disclosure
  • Excessive Agency
  • Vector/Embedding Weaknesses
  • Misinformation
  • Unbounded Consumption

Include:

  • Differences from classic OWASP frameworks
  • Mapping to defensive controls (WAF, gateway, app-layer)
  • Efficacy of each control layer
  • Limitations and failure points of each control

Module 3 — Prompt Injection Detection

Lab: Lab 02 — 02-Prompt-Injection

The “SQL injection moment” for AI.

Topics:

  • Direct prompt injection
  • Indirect prompt injection
  • Hidden instructions
  • Document-based attacks
  • HTML/Markdown injection
  • Jailbreak patterns
  • Context override attacks
  • Role confusion attacks

Detection strategies:

  • keyword heuristics
  • semantic classification
  • prompt linting
  • instruction boundary enforcement
  • allow/deny policies
  • AI-aware regex patterns

Hands-on labs:

  • Attack a chatbot
  • Bypass naïve filters
  • Build layered detection

Module 4 — AI-Aware WAF Rules

Lab: Lab 03 — 03-WAF-Basics

How WAF rules evolve for AI systems.

  • Topics:
  • protecting LLM endpoints
  • inference API protection
  • token-aware rate limiting
  • prompt size inspection
  • AI-specific signatures
  • conversation anomaly detection
  • multi-turn abuse patterns
  • model enumeration attempts
  • inference scraping
  • denial-of-wallet protection

Examples:

  • protecting /v1/chat/completions
  • defending streaming APIs
  • blocking recursive agent calls

Module 5 — Securing RAG Pipelines

Lab: Lab 04 — 04-RAG-Security

One of the biggest new attack surfaces.

Topics:

  • vector DB threats
  • embedding poisoning
  • malicious PDFs/docs
  • retrieval manipulation
  • semantic poisoning
  • hidden instructions in documents
  • cross-document contamination
  • data exfiltration via retrieval

Defenses:

  • ingestion sanitization
  • trust scoring
  • metadata isolation
  • document provenance
  • retrieval policies
  • segmentation

Case study: “Upload a poisoned PDF and take over the AI assistant.”

Module 6 — Agentic AI Security

Lab: Lab 05 — 05-Agent-Security

Where things become dangerous.

Topics:

  • excessive agency
  • tool abuse
  • API chaining
  • autonomous loops
  • permission escalation
  • memory poisoning
  • indirect tool execution
  • agent impersonation
  • credential leakage
  • multi-agent attacks

Defenses:

  • least privilege for agents
  • approval gates
  • runtime policy engines
  • sandboxing
  • scoped credentials
  • tool whitelisting
  • human-in-the-loop

This is the section managers usually care about most because the risk becomes operational and business-impacting. Effective governance for government operations requires strict adherence to least privilege principles.

Module 7 — API Security for AI

Lab: Lab 06 — 06-Denial-of-Wallet

AI systems are API-heavy.

Topics:

  • API gateways
  • GraphQL AI risks
  • MCP/API abuse
  • JWT protection
  • AI plugin security
  • agent authentication
  • delegated authorization
  • secret management
  • signed prompts
  • API inventory for AI

Tie into: OWASP API Security Top 10

Module 8 — Detection Engineering & SOC Integration

Lab: Lab 07 — 07-Detection

Operational defense.

Topics:

  • AI telemetry
  • prompt logging
  • token analytics
  • anomaly detection
  • semantic SIEM pipelines
  • AI attack indicators
  • threat hunting for LLM abuse
  • AI runtime observability

Examples:

  • detecting jailbreak campaigns
  • spotting automated agent abuse
  • identifying model scraping

Module 9 — Cloud WAFs and AI Security

Lab: none — interactive recap/discussion

Vendor-specific implementations.

Topics:

  • AWS WAF for AI APIs
  • Azure WAF
  • Cloudflare AI Gateway
  • API gateways
  • Envoy AI filtering
  • Kong AI Gateway
  • NGINX AI security patterns

Comparison:

  • traditional WAF vs AI gateway vs app-layer guardrail
  • proxy-based vs semantic filtering

Module 10 — Building a Layered AI Defense

Lab: Lab 08 — 08-Layered-Defense

Important philosophical conclusion:

No single layer can secure AI (a WAF least of all, on its own).

Students build a layered model:

  1. WAF
  2. API gateway
  3. AI gateway
  4. Guardrails
  5. Runtime monitoring
  6. Identity/authorization
  7. Sandbox
  8. Human approval
  9. Observability
  10. Incident response

This aligns strongly with the “multi-layer security” model essential for robust government IT infrastructure.

Module ↔ Lab map

Labs run in lab order, which follows module order.

The course has 10 modules but 8 labs: Modules 2 and 9 are interactive recap/discussion and have no lab.

Each lab is tagged with its module throughout this outline.

  • Lab 01 (Module 1)
    • Folder: 01-Introduction
    • Title: Explore an AI system — what's on the wire
  • Lab 02 (Module 3)
    • Folder: 02-Prompt-Injection
    • Title: Attack a chatbot & bypass naïve filtering
  • Lab 03 (Module 4)
    • Folder: 03-WAF-Basics
    • Title: Build AI-aware WAF rules
  • Lab 04 (Module 5)
    • Folder: 04-RAG-Security
    • Title: Poison a RAG pipeline
  • Lab 05 (Module 6)
    • Folder: 05-Agent-Security
    • Title: Secure an autonomous agent
  • Lab 06 (Module 7)
    • Folder: 06-Denial-of-Wallet
    • Title: Detect denial-of-wallet attacks
  • Lab 07 (Module 8)
    • Folder: 07-Detection
    • Title: Monitor AI abuse patterns in logs
  • Lab 08 (Module 10)
    • Folder: 08-Layered-Defense
    • Title: Build a layered AI defense architecture

Capstone

Students defend a simulated enterprise AI assistant.

Attackers attempt:

  1. prompt injection
  2. tool abuse
  3. credential theft
  4. retrieval poisoning
  5. excessive API consumption
  6. agent escalation

Teams build:

  • WAF rules
  • AI gateway policies
  • runtime detection
  • guardrails
  • incident response

Requirements

  • Participants are expected to possess prior knowledge of HTTP and API security protocols, proxy infrastructure, authentication mechanisms, the OWASP Top 10 list, RESTful services, and foundational cloud networking principles.

Target Audience

  • Security engineers and application security professionals
  • SOC analysts and detection engineers
  • Specialists in API security
  • Professionals managing cloud, API, or platform security
  • DevSecOps engineers
  • Security architects
  • WAF and network security specialists
  • Engineers focused on AI platforms
 35 Hours

Number of participants


Price per participant

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