BUILT FOR BANKING · AI

Built for Banking AI That's Documented, Governed, and Explainable by Design

Every cybersecurity vendor is racing to market AI. DefenseStorm builds AI the way banks build trust: with documentation, oversight, and accountability at every step. Our newest capability, GRID AI, brings natural-language investigation across the platform, governed by the same standard.

DefenseStorm's AI capabilities follow seven Built for Banking AI Principles, aligned with the NIST AI RMF and CRI AI RMF. Every capability, including GRID AI, ships fully inventoried, documented, and explainable to non-technical professionals. When your examiner asks how it works, you have the documentation to answer, without relying on us to explain it for you.

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Framework-aligned AI governance

NIST AI RMF CRI AI RMF

Your vendor's AI is your institution's risk.

When a cybersecurity vendor deploys AI inside your security operations, your institution inherits a risk it must govern, document, and explain to its examiner. Not the vendor — the institution.

The NCUA launched an AI hub, and banking regulatory guidance is pending.

Governing AI requires the same discipline as governing any other system — inventory, documentation, oversight, accountability. Whether you can apply it depends on what your vendor lets you see.

The question is not whether your vendor uses AI. The question is whether your vendor’s AI can be defended under examination without the vendor in the room.

The DefenseStorm Standard

AI in GRID Active must be defendable to your examiner — without DefenseStorm in the room.

If the customer's risk officer cannot explain what the AI does, how it works, what data it uses, and what controls govern it — DefenseStorm has created a problem for the people it claims to serve.

THE SEVEN BUILT FOR BANKING AI PRINCIPLES

Seven Principles. One Standard. Built for Your Examiner.

Every AI capability in GRID Active, including GRID AI, is built and operated against all seven of these principles.

Principle 1

Visibility

Every AI capability is inventoried, documented, and visible to the customer. No hidden models. No undocumented machine learning. Institutions with no-AI policies can disable AI features entirely — a product capability, not a configuration workaround.

Principle 2

Explainability

Every AI output is explained in terms a non-technical professional understands. Confidence levels are visible in the platform interface. Mandatory operator feedback loops serve multiple purposes including drift detection.

Principle 3

Documentation

Model cards for every AI feature serve as artifacts for due diligence — not marketing collateral.

Principle 4

Governance Structure

DefenseStorm’s internal AI governance includes defined roles and responsibilities for AI governance, internal AI acceptable use policy, review and approval processes before ship, testing and validation standards, drift monitoring, and AI-specific incident response procedures.

Principle 5

Fourth-Party Transparency

Full disclosure of every external AI model or API operating within GRID Active — including data flows, retention and training practices, contractual protections, security posture, and contingency plans. The visibility you need to manage fourth-party risk.

Principle 6

Security of AI Components

Protection against adversarial attacks, data poisoning, prompt injection, and unauthorized access. AI components are secured to the same standard as every other platform component, with failover and resilience requirements.

Principle 7

Framework Alignment

AI governance maps explicitly to the frameworks FIs use, so they can demonstrate compliance through our documentation. The goal: reduce the compliance burden.

AI Capabilities in Production

Live in Production. Governed by Principle.

Every capability below is in production today and governed by all seven Built for Banking AI Principles.

GRID AI

GRID AI is DefenseStorm's natural-language assistant, built into GRID Active, our intelligent data engine. Ask about your security and risk data in plain language and act on the answer: summarize an incident and get a recommended next step, review hundreds of events at once, or explore your control posture, all without writing a query. GRID AI builds on our Gen AI Query Assistant and extends it across the platform.

Governed by:

Governed by all seven Built for Banking AI Principles. Every interaction is logged and auditable, outputs are explainable with the underlying data one click away. We can provide answers to which fourth-party AI providers are used, and the capability can be disabled entirely for institutions with no-AI policies.

LEARN MORE: EXPLORE GRID ACTIVE

UEBA Threat

Behavior-aware threat detection that identifies anomalous user and entity activity within your environment. Risk-scored events are triaged inside CTS Ops with banking context, generating structured evidence for governance reporting.

Governed by:

All seven Built for Banking AI Principles. Model card documented. Operator feedback loops active.

LEARN MORE: EXPLORE MDR FOR BANKING

GRID AI is an engine, not just an interface. The same intelligence that answers questions in plain language also powers automated, guided workflows across GRID Active, starting with Risk & Governance Intelligent Onboarding.

See GRID AI in action

Click through GRID AI the way your team will use it. Ask a question in plain language, and act on the answer. No form, no signup.

Want it running on your data?

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Stand up governance and risk in hours, not weeks

Governance and risk are where DefenseStorm separates from generic MDR, and they're also where setup has traditionally been slowest. Risk & Governance Intelligent Onboarding changes that. The GRID AI engine maps your control frameworks, translates responses from a framework you've already completed, reads your written policies, and recommends the recurring tasks and detection-trigger evidence that prove each control, so your program is exam-ready from the start.

How it works

Pick your frameworks. Choose from banking-relevant frameworks like NIST CSF 2.0, CRI Profile, and NCUA ACET.

Bring what you have. Upload existing responses, or translate from a framework you've already mapped using DefenseStorm's banking-control library.

Let the engine map it. The GRID AI engine maps each control to GRID Active against 10,000+ banking-specific controls, with confidence-scored suggestions you review and accept.

Connect the evidence. It recommends recurring governance task schedules and links running Threat Surveillance detections as control evidence, visible to examiners on the Frameworks page.

Go live. Your frameworks, controls, tasks, and evidence are live in GRID Active, ready for reporting and your next exam.

Outcomes

Faster time to value. Guided setup replaces manual configuration and heavy professional-services lift.
No cold-start gaps. Pre-populated, banking-specific controls mean fewer compliance gaps that surface at exam time.
Governed like everything else. Confidence-scored, explainable suggestions with human review keep you in control, earned autonomy, not autopilot.

Like GRID AI itself, the onboarding engine follows the seven Built for Banking AI Principles: suggestions are explainable and confidence-scored, and a human accepts every mapping before it commits.

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Framework Alignment

Mapped to the Frameworks Your Institution Already Reports Against

Built for Banking AI Principle	NIST AI RMF	CRI FS AI RMF v1.0
Visibility	Govern	Inventory & Classification
Explainability	Map, Measure	Explainability & Interpretability
Documentation	Govern, Map	Documentation & Reporting
Governance Structure	Govern	Governance & Accountability
Fourth-Party Transparency	Govern, Map	Third-Party AI Management
Security of AI	Manage	Security & Resilience
Framework Alignment	All functions	All control families

AI Governance Comparison

Not All AI Is Governed the Same Way

AI Governance Criteria	DefenseStorm	Horizontal MDR Vendors	FI-Vertical Security
AI inventory documented	Yes	No	-
Model cards per AI feature	Yes	No	No
Fourth-party AI disclosed	Yes	No	No
Mapped to NIST AI RMF	Yes	No	No
Mapped to CRI Profile	Yes	No	No
AI opt-out capability	Yes	No	-
Examiner-ready AI docs	Yes	No	No

Frequently Asked Questions

What is GRID AI?

GRID AI is DefenseStorm's natural-language assistant, built into GRID Active, the intelligent data engine for banks and credit unions. Security and risk teams investigate incidents, search their data, summarize events, and explore control posture by asking questions in plain language. GRID AI is governed by seven Built for Banking AI Principles, and every interaction is logged and auditable.

How does GRID AI speed up Risk and Governance onboarding?

Risk & Governance Intelligent Onboarding is powered by the GRID AI engine. It maps your control frameworks to GRID Active against 10,000+ banking-specific controls, translates responses from frameworks you have already completed, reads your written policies, and recommends the tasks and detection evidence that prove each control, so your governance program is exam-ready in hours, not weeks.

What are the Built for Banking AI Principles?

The Built for Banking AI Principles are seven operating standards that govern every AI capability inside DefenseStorm’s GRID Active platform: Visibility, Explainability, Documentation, Governance Structure, Fourth-Party Transparency, Security of AI Components, and Framework Alignment. They are mapped to NIST AI RMF and CRI AI RMF.

Does DefenseStorm use third-party AI models?

Yes, and DefenseStorm fully discloses every external AI model or API operating within the platform. Fourth-Party Transparency is one of the seven B4B AI Principles — relevant data is documented to facilitate due diligence and fourth-party risk management.

Can banks opt out of AI?

Yes. Institutions with no-AI policies can disable AI features, including GRID AI, entirely. This is a product capability, not a configuration workaround.

How does DefenseStorm's AI governance map to NIST AI RMF?

DefenseStorm’s seven B4B AI Principles are organized under NIST AI RMF’s four core functions: Govern, Map, Measure, and Manage. Each principle maps to specific NIST functions as well as CRI AI RMF control objectives.

What AI capabilities does DefenseStorm currently offer?

DefenseStorm currently has two AI capabilities in production: UEBA Threat (behavior-aware detection with banking-context risk scoring) and Gen AI Query Assistant (plain-English access to GRID Active data, fully logged and auditable). Both are governed by all seven B4B AI Principles with model cards documented.

How is DefenseStorm's approach to AI different from competitors?

Most cybersecurity vendors market AI that’s faster. DefenseStorm builds AI that surfaces the information leadership needs to make meaningful decisions — and documents it so your examiner can verify it. The difference: when your examiner asks how your vendor’s AI is governed, DefenseStorm provides a transparency package mapped to NIST AI RMF and CRI AI RMF. Competitors provide a marketing slide or nothing at all.

What is 'earned autonomy' in DefenseStorm's AI approach?

Earned autonomy means AI capability grows step by step, under explicit policy, with human sign-off boundaries. DefenseStorm does not deploy fully autonomous AI. Every critical decision involves human-in-the-loop oversight from CTS Ops banking experts or users at the institution, with clear escalation paths.

Can I share DefenseStorm's AI governance documentation with my examiner?

Yes. DefenseStorm provides a Customer Due Diligence Package that includes AI Feature Inventory, Model Cards, Fourth-Party AI Disclosure, Privacy and Data Governance documentation, AI Governance Policy Summary, and Framework Alignment Maps — designed specifically for examiner review and vendor due diligence.

When your examiner asks about AI, be ready.

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