The Analyst's Own Use of AI: Querying, Drafting and Summarising in Modes 1 to 3

All courses / AI Blue / Module 3 / Chapter 12

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Classify SOC data as public, internal, confidential or restricted and assign permitted routes to each class
• List the content that goes to no assistant whatever the route and explain why
• Distinguish assistance from delegation using the four places where the line blurs
• Draft a one-page acceptable-use sheet with routes, a never-paste list, the record and the unassisted share

Key concepts

Route

A pairing of a tool, a mode and a hosting arrangement. The policy states, per data class, which routes are allowed and the highest degree of delegation permitted on each, and the tooling enforces it.

AI-use record

A pointer in the case record, not a transcript: which step used an assistant, by which route and mode, for which data class and purpose, how the output was used and what it was checked against.

Assistance versus delegation

Assistance means the analyst decides what is asked, reads the output in full, owns the result and takes every action. Anything that acts on standing authority is an agent with a mandate.

Shadow AI

The use of AI tools the organisation has not approved or does not know about. The remedy is a better approved route, a fast exception path and a culture in which disclosure is a safe act.

Unassisted share

The share of cases worked without an assistant so that skill survives: by default one case in five, and one in two for analysts in their first six months; one in ten at Nordvik Region.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. The approved assistant may refuse anything that looks like a security question. What would make the approved route the best one for security work in your organisation?
2. A log entry of 'used as drafted' is acceptable only with a recorded check. What counts as a sufficient check for a ticket summary, and what for a drafted query?
3. The AI-use log protects the analyst as well as the organisation. Under what terms would analysts in your team see it that way?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. Why do the safeguards for Modes 1 to 3 rest on the analyst's discipline and the tooling around it?

   1. Because these tools are exempt from the organisation's data classification
   2. Because the vendors of such tools accept accountability for what the output is used for
   3. Because in these modes the AI acts with the analyst's own identity and permissions
   4. Because the AI Act forbids logging of conversational assistants
   Show the answer

   C. Because in these modes the AI acts with the analyst's own identity and permissions
   In Modes 1 to 3 the AI borrows the analyst's identity, so governance is about the analyst's use: classification, routes restricted by class and enforcement in the case tool and gateway.

2. Which of the following goes to no assistant, whatever the route?

   1. Credentials and secrets, including those found inside evidence
   2. A public threat report that arrived overnight
   3. Field names and types from the SIEM schema
   4. A published advisory from the national CSIRT, summarised on an enterprise tier
   Show the answer

   A. Credentials and secrets, including those found inside evidence
   The never-paste list starts with credentials and secrets: a credential found in a log is a finding to report and rotate, not a string to explain to an assistant.

3. A Mode 3 work tool runs a command that changes an endpoint. How does the chapter classify this?

   1. As assistance, provided the analyst reads the tool's output in full afterwards
   2. As a Level 0 Advisory action that needs no record
   3. As shadow AI that must be reported to the incident process
   4. As B4 Respond, which falls under the playbook manifests of Chapter 10
   Show the answer

   D. As B4 Respond, which falls under the playbook manifests of Chapter 10
   Read-only queries are within the policy, but a state-changing command is response work and falls under the playbook manifests; the policy's action list for the work tool excludes anything that writes.