VxRail Security for Life: Defending the Foundation of Digital Transformation
Tue, 01 Oct 2024 19:58:56 -0000
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Welcome to our VxRail Security for Life blog series, where over the next five weeks, we will embark on a comprehensive journey through VxRail's security features. In an age where technology evolves at breakneck speed, understanding how to protect your infrastructure—including AI deployments—is critical for any forward-thinking enterprise.
Today’s Digital Battlefield: Navigating the New Era of AI
In today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape, the proliferation of Large Language Model (LLM) "AI" tools has brought about a significant shift. There are significant changes—not just in capabilities but also in the security challenges that come hand-in-hand with such transformation. Organizations diving into AI services and platforms are compelled to strengthen their existing security frameworks, to effectively combat the threats posed by increasingly sophisticated cyber adversaries. The good news for VxRail users is the inherent robustness of their system's security toolkit is thoughtfully designed for such an era of innovation and challenge. To see how VxRail’s comprehensive, security-by-design approach addresses these evolving needs, check out the VxRail Security Infographic.
As the opening chapter of our "VxRail Security for Life" blog series, this post marks the beginning of a deep dive into the comprehensive array of security features that VxRail offers. Our journey will cover the entire product lifecycle, shedding light on how each built-in security measure fortifies the support structure of your entire IT infrastructure, with a special focus on AI deployments. Join us as we navigate through the multifaceted landscape of security in this dynamic new age, underscored by VxRail's commitment to resilient and adaptive defense mechanisms.
Understanding AI Attack Vectors
To address these security challenges, we must first grasp the potential attack vectors that can be exploited by bad actors. These vectors include:
- Injection – Manipulating the AI to follow “bad” instructions.
- Infection – Introducing vulnerabilities/malware in AI model’s source code.
- Evasion – Tricking the AI into behaving badly with carefully crafted inputs.
- Poisoning – Corrupting the training data with vulnerabilities, malware, or false information.
- Extraction – Stealing the AI model by reverse engineering it through strategic questioning.
- Denial of Service – Overwhelming the AI service with rapid queries.
- Excessive Agency – Exploiting broad permissions granted to the model within the infrastructure.
Once we’ve identified the attack vectors, the next crucial step is safeguarding against them. While deploying LLM/AI tools with built-in security is essential, it’s just one layer of defense. Fortunately, modern Zero Trust infrastructure security provides a solid foundation, allowing customers to rely on established practices to mitigate risks effectively.
Infrastructure Security for AI
VxRail
VxRail, an HCI appliance built on Dell PowerEdge and engineered with VMware by Broadcom, offers comprehensive security controls to counter each AI attack vector.
Hardware/Firmware security with:
- Physical controls
- Silicon Root of Trust
- Trusted Execution Environment
- TPM 2.0
- Secured Component Verification
Software security with:
- SecureBoot
- Signed and Trusted binaries
- Encryption
- Modern IAM
- Hardening
Across all levels:
- Secure Development Lifecycle
- Monitoring/Logging Auditing
VxRail’s Zero Trust security features and capabilities are ready today for an AI environment.
Dell Technologies Ecosystem
While VxRail provides an excellent starting point for AI infrastructure, customers can elevate their security posture by complementing VxRail with Dell's PowerProtect Data Manager. PowerProtect offers infrastructure monitoring, intrusion detection, and behavioral analysis—bolstering defenses against the identified AI attack vectors.
Deploying an LLM/AI model as a service is a significant undertaking—one that demands security considerations from the outset. Dell Technologies' VxRail, combined with PowerProtect, forms a winning security combination, safeguarding your AI deployments.
In the next post of the VxRail Security for Life Series we will start a deep dive into VxRail’s security features and capabilities across the entire lifecycle and how VxRail is ready now to secure your AI infrastructure.
Dell References
- VxRail Comprehensive Security by Design
- PowerEdge/iDRAC Security Configuration Guide
- PowerProtect Data Manager Security Configuration Guide
Third party references
- Artificial Intelligence: The new attack surface - YouTube video from IBM's, Jeff Crume, Distinguished Engineer
- Intel Trusted Execution Technology
- OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications
- VMware reset attack protection
- Information Security Management at VMware
Author: Joann Kent, Cybersecurity Product Manager