Case Study: PowerSchool secures PowerBuddy AI assistant with Cobalt LLM pentesting

PowerSchool secures PowerBuddy with Cobalt ahead of 2024 launch

PowerSchool, a provider of educational software, faced the challenge of securely launching its new AI assistant, PowerBuddy, for millions of students. They needed to identify and mitigate novel security risks specific to large language models (LLMs) that extended beyond traditional application security. To ensure a safe product, PowerSchool sought an offensive security partner and selected Cobalt for its penetration testing services.

Cobalt applied a comprehensive LLM testing methodology, which uncovered critical safety and security issues, such as a student's ability to generate inappropriate content. This allowed PowerSchool to remediate the vulnerabilities prior to launch. The engagement with Cobalt gave PowerSchool the confidence to launch PowerBuddy securely and talk about its features rather than answer security questions, leading to a commitment with Cobalt for ongoing testing of new AI features.

PowerSchool