Secure AI in the Hands of 200,000 Users with Arizona State University CISO Lester Godsey

On Episode 33 of Enterprise AI Defenders, hosts Evan Reiser (CEO and co-founder, Abnormal AI) and Mike Britton (CIO, Abnormal AI) sit down with Lester Godsey, Chief Information Security Officer at Arizona State University, to discuss how ASU is building an ambitious, campus-wide AI strategy. With more than 200,000 users, ASU has deployed an in-house platform supporting 60+ language models and has granted all students and staff access to ChatGPT. Godsey outlines ASU’s strong governance framework, proactive security controls, and threat modeling to address risks such as prompt injection and insider misuse, while highlighting student-driven innovation through hackathons and grants that promote responsible AI experimentation in cybersecurity. 

Quick hits from Lester:

On AI threat acceleration: "It’s not net new attacks, we’re just seeing them executed faster, more effectively. The deepfakes in 2024 aren’t funny anymore."

On internal innovation: "We built our own platform supporting over 60 large language models, with walled garden controls and ethical guardrails."

On AI’s future impact: “We’re training a model to ingest messy threat intel from all sources and separate the good from the bad. That’s how small teams can finally take action with confidence.”

Recent Book Recommendation: It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by D. Michael Abrashoff

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Enterprise AI Defenders is a show where top security executives share how moves to the cloud have created an evolved threat landscape that requires new tools to protect against cybercrime. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/.

Enterprise AI Defenders is produced by Josh Meer