Lock the Doors: AI Security Basics for a Small Office · Lesson 5 of 7

Find the AI tools nobody told you about

20 minutes. Ask kindly, look in three places, and decide what stays.

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Somewhere in your office, someone is using an AI tool you don't know about. That's not a scandal. It usually means a person found a faster way to do their job and didn't think to mention it. Security people call this shadow AI: AI tools staff installed or signed up for on their own, outside whatever the business officially uses.

The tools themselves aren't the problem. The problem is that nobody owns them. Nobody checks their updates, nobody knows what company data went into them, and nobody can turn them off if the person who set them up leaves.

This lesson finds them, without turning it into a hunt.

Two reasons from this fall's news:

• AI software has flaws too. Google's threat researchers counted more than 1,500 flaws disclosed this year in AI software itself, about half in tools for building agents (names like Flowise and Langflow) and more than 200 in tools for running AI models on your own machine (names like Ollama and LiteLLM). These are often set up by one curious employee on a work laptop or a cloud account, with no owner and no update plan.
• Free personal accounts hold company work. When someone drafts a customer proposal in a free personal AI account, that work lives in an account the business doesn't control, under that plan's terms, and it leaves when the person does.

Send this to the team, or say it at the next staff meeting. The tone matters. If people think they'll be in trouble, they won't answer.

> Quick, no-blame question. We're making a list of every AI tool the office uses so we can keep them updated and safe. Are you using any AI tool for work that I might not know about? That includes: > > - a free or personal account on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot or anything similar > - a browser extension that uses AI (writing helpers, summarizers, meeting note-takers) > - an AI feature you switched on inside another app we use > - anything running on your computer or a cloud account, like an AI model server or an agent builder > - an AI note-taker that joins calls > > Nobody's in trouble. If it's useful, we'll keep it and make it official.

Then mean it. The first person who answers honestly and gets thanked instead of scolded sets the tone for everyone else.

People forget. These three places catch what they forget.

• The connected-apps lists from Lesson 4. Your IT partner's company-wide list from Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, or each person's own connected-apps page, shows every outside app that was granted access to company email or files. Anything with "AI," "GPT," "assistant," "notes" or "copilot" in the name goes on the list.
• Browser extensions on each computer. In the browser's menu, look for Extensions. Writing assistants, summarizers and note-takers often run as extensions and can read the pages you visit.
• The calendar. Look at a week of meeting invites. AI note-takers often show up as an extra attendee with a name like "[Tool] Notetaker." If one is joining customer calls, that's a conversation to have today.

If you have an IT partner, add a fourth: ask them whether any computer or cloud account is running an AI model server or agent builder, and whether any of it is reachable from the internet. None of it should be reachable from outside without a login.

For each tool you found, pick one of three:

| Decision | When | What happens | |---|---|---| | Keep it, make it official | It's useful and the vendor is one you're comfortable with | It goes on the Front-Door List with an owner, an update routine, MFA, and the right permissions from Lessons 3 and 4. Move it to a company account if it's on a personal one. | | Replace it | The job is useful, but the tool isn't one you want | Move the work to a tool you already pay for. Help the person switch so they don't lose the time savings. | | Shut it down | Nobody really needs it, or it's running somewhere it shouldn't be | Remove its access from the account side (Lesson 4), uninstall it, and, if company data went into a personal account, ask the person to delete those conversations. |

Two rules of thumb:

• Anything running on a work machine or cloud account that faces the internet without a login gets shut down today, then rebuilt properly later if it's needed.
• Anything that touches customer data on a personal account moves to a company account or stops. Not next month. This week.

Open the Front-Door List and go to Part 3: Unofficial AI tools found.

• Write each tool, who uses it, what it touches, and where you found it.
• Write your decision (Keep, Replace or Shut down) and the date it's done.
• For every "Keep," copy the row up into Part 2 with an owner and an update routine.
• Thank the people who told you.

Check it worked

• You asked the whole team, in writing or out loud.
• You looked in all three places: connected-apps lists, browser extensions and the calendar.
• Every tool you found has a decision and a date.
• Nothing that faces the internet is running without a login and an owner.

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Next: the attack that needs no flaw at all. Just a convincing email, or a familiar voice on the phone.

→ Lesson 6: Fakes, cloned voices and the call-back rule

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