Securing Applications of Large Language Models: A Shift-Left Approach

The emergence of large language models (LLMs) has brought forth remarkable capabilities in various domains, yet it also poses inherent risks to trustfulness, encompassing concerns such as toxicity, stereotype bias, adversarial robustness, ethics, privacy, and fairness. Particularly in sensitive applications like customer support chatbots, AI assistants, and digital information automation, which handle privacy-sensitive data, the adoption of generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) models is pervasive. However, ensuring robust security measures to mitigate potential security vulnerabilities is imperative. This paper advocates for a proactive approach termed "security shift-left," which emphasizes integrating security measures early in the development lifecycle to bolster the security posture of LLM-based applications. Our proposed method leverages basic machine learning (ML) techniques and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to effectively address security concerns. We present empirical evidence validating the efficacy of our approach with one LLM-based security application designed for the detection of malicious intent, utilizing both open-source datasets and synthesized datasets. By adopting this security shift-left methodology, developers can confidently develop LLM-based applications with robust security protection, safeguarding against potential threats and vulnerabilities.