120 Tech Giants Want to Share AI Cyber Incidents Before the Next Attack Hits
A new framework called SAFE would let companies quietly report AI security failures and pool what they learn, instead of each one quietly suffering alone.
Key points
- More than 120 organisations in the Open Secure AI Alliance proposed the SAFE framework on 6 August 2025, the opening day of the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.
- SAFE stands for Shared AI Findings Exchange, a set of guidelines for collecting and sharing AI security incidents across the industry.
- NVIDIA, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Amazon and Visa are among the members contributing tools and joining the alliance.
- The Linux Foundation is coordinating a public comment period so organisations can shape the guidelines before they are finalised.
- Participating companies are also releasing dozens of free, open-source security tools built specifically for AI agents.
A coalition of more than 120 technology companies is proposing a way to treat AI security like a shared problem rather than a private embarrassment.
The group, called the Open Secure AI Alliance, published a request for public comments on the SAFE framework on Wednesday. SAFE is short for Shared AI Findings Exchange. In plain terms, it is a set of rules for confidentially reporting security incidents involving AI agents (software that can carry out multi-step tasks on its own, like booking meetings, writing code or scanning a network), analysing what went wrong, and publishing the lessons so every organisation can benefit.
The announcement landed on the first day of Black Hat, the annual cybersecurity conference where researchers reveal new attack methods and defences.
Why does this matter to ordinary people?
AI agents are moving fast into workplaces. Banks, hospitals, insurers and retailers are already deploying them. When one fails, or gets tricked, the damage can spread quickly.
Right now, most organisations that suffer an AI security failure keep quiet about it. That silence means the next company makes the same mistake. SAFE would change that by creating a trusted channel for sharing what happened, without naming names, so defenders everywhere learn faster.
The framework proposes four concrete things: confidentially collect and analyse AI incidents and near misses, notify those affected, identify patterns in how controls fail, and publish evidence-based recommendations to cut systemic risk.
What tools are already being shared?
Beyond the SAFE proposal, alliance members are releasing free tools now.
NVIDIA, whose contributions NVIDIA flagged in its own announcement, released several items. Garak is a free vulnerability scanner, a tool that checks AI models for weaknesses like data leaks, prompt injection (a type of attack that tricks an AI by slipping hidden instructions into its input) and jailbreaks (attempts to make a model ignore its safety rules) before the model goes live. NeMo Guardrails enforces safety policies at runtime. The NVIDIA OpenShell runtime restricts what an agent can actually reach or modify inside a system.
| Contributor | Tool | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA | Garak | Scans AI models for vulnerabilities before deployment |
| Microsoft | PyRIT | Automates red-team testing of AI systems |
| Amazon | Cedar | Sets verifiable, auditable limits on what agents can do |
| Capital One | VulnHunter | Finds security flaws in AI-generated code |
| Visa | Vulnerability Agentic Harness | Helps teams find and fix agent security issues |
| Cisco | Antares SLMs | Small language models trained to pinpoint vulnerabilities in codebases |
Amazon joined the alliance on the same day as the announcement and contributed two tools: Strands Agents, an open-source toolkit for building AI agents, and Cedar, an open-source language for setting strict, auditable rules on what an agent is and is not allowed to do.
Visa also joined, contributing a vulnerability testing harness built specifically for agentic systems.
What happens next?
The SAFE framework is still a proposal. The Linux Foundation is gathering feedback before any final version is published.
For businesses already using AI agents, the practical upshot is that free, vetted security tools are available today. Security teams do not need to wait for the guidelines to be finalised before using Garak, PyRIT or Cedar to harden what they have already deployed.
Common questions
Is this framework mandatory?
No. SAFE is a voluntary set of guidelines. Any organisation can choose to adopt it, ignore it or submit comments to shape it during the open feedback period.
Does sharing incident data mean exposing private company information?
The proposal specifically calls for confidential collection and analysis, meaning the intent is to share patterns and lessons rather than identifying which company was hit or what its internal systems look like.
Do these tools cost money?
All the tools named in the announcement are open-source, meaning free to download and use. They are published on platforms like GitHub for any security team to inspect and deploy.
