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What Is a Data Breach and How Can It Be Prevented?

  • By Gcore
  • April 17, 2024
  • 7 min read
What Is a Data Breach and How Can It Be Prevented?

Data breaches are alarming incidents where unauthorized access to sensitive data jeopardizes the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information. They’ve become increasingly common, affecting organizations across the globe. A data breach should be avoided at all costs, and in the event that one occurs it requires swift and thorough mitigation to avoid serious negative consequences. This article explores data breach causes, common types, and repercussions for businesses. We will also outline proactive measures for prevention and effective strategies for mitigation, equipping you with the knowledge you need to protect your organization against this type of cybercrime.

What Is a Data Breach?

A data breach occurs when unauthorized access is gained to confidential information, either through accidental disclosure or deliberate theft. The exposed data often comprises sensitive details like financial records, personal health information, intellectual property, or login credentials, posing significant risks to businesses and their customers.

Businesses must take data security seriously or face legal and financial consequences. Regulations such as the GDPR in Europe and various state-level standards in the US set strict rules for protecting data. Data breaches caused by non-compliance with these regulations can result in substantial fines, as seen in the case of Amazon facing an $886 million penalty for failing to seek consent before using customers’ personal information. Other associated fees include PR and attorney fees, and fallouts from operational disruption.

But data breaches cost companies more than money; they undermine consumer confidence in a business’s ability to protect their sensitive information. As a result, many consumers stop engaging with a brand after a breach, ruining its reputation.

Why Data Breaches Happen

How data is stolen

There are several main reasons that data breaches happen, with attackers using a diverse range of methods to seize personal information.

  • Loss or theft: If lost, an unencrypted phone, laptop, or drive can be a treasure trove for cybercriminals. Even locked devices may fall prey to sophisticated hacking techniques, opening the door for stored data to be breached.
  • Human error and social engineering: Employees might inadvertently expose data by misplacing it, sending it to the wrong recipient, or not securing it properly. Such incidents, though accidental, result in unauthorized data access.
  • Insider attacks: Individuals within an organization may intentionally leak data to inflict harm, or benefit financially or personally, by passing information to competitors or hackers. In one case, an employee breached internal systems to give fellow employees paid vacations.
  • Outsider attacks: Cybercriminals outside an organization target vulnerabilities in its security defenses to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. These attackers can bypass security measures to steal data for fraudulent purposes or sell it on the dark web through a variety of methods, such as the following:

    • Hacking: Hackers find and use weak spots in software or networks to get in and take data without permission. They often look for systems that haven’t been updated with the latest security patches, using their technical skills to bypass security. In 2022, Slack’s GitHub account was reportedly hacked; an attacker stole employee tokens and used them to access company data, turning the hack into a data breach.

    Phishing: Here, cybercriminals send fake messages that look like they’re from legitimate sources, such as a well-known parcel delivery service. They then ask recipients to fill in their details and click on a link to track a non-existent package. When the link is clicked, it installs spyware that captures passwords and personal data. This is exactly what happened in 2023 when a Mailchimp employee was tricked into sharing their credentials.

    • Malware: Often combined with social engineering or phishing, this method involves tricking someone into installing malware disguised as desirable software. Once installed, this software can take control of the victim’s device, steal sensitive information, and potentially compromise other connected systems, as in a most recent password-stealing malware that spread fake job listings on Facebook in February 2024 in an attempt to gain account credentials. The hacker can also demand payment to unlock them, a tactic known as ransomware, instead of immediately breaching the data.
    • DDoS (distributed denial-of-service attack): Unlike other methods that aim to steal data, DDoS attacks can be launched by a group of cybercriminals. The DDoS attack makes data theft difficult or impossible to detect. Rumor has it that the 2020 New Zealand Stock Exchange DDoS attacks were merely a cover for more nefarious cybercrime involving data breaches. Additionally, DDoS attacks can contribute to data breaches indirectly in multiple ways:
      • Reduced security focus: During a DDoS attack, security teams are overwhelmed by the surge in traffic, potentially neglecting other security measures that could prevent a data breach.Exploiting vulnerabilities: A DDoS attack might be used to probe a system’s defenses and identify weaknesses that could then be exploited for a data breach.
      • Compromised devices: In some cases, the very devices used in a DDoS attack (like hijacked IoT devices) might also be vulnerable to further exploitation, creating a potential entry point for attackers to steal data.

The most common thread tying all these reasons and methods together is security weaknesses.

Which Types of Data Are Commonly Breached?

Cybercriminals use these data breach methods to access and steal different kinds of sensitive information. They target high-value information for financial gain through selling this data on the black market, or cause direct harm to individuals or organizations by using the stolen information for identity theft or fraud.

Financial Information

Attackers commonly seek to steal bank account details and credit card numbers. One example is the Equifax breach in 2017, where attackers exploited outdated third-party software to expose the financial data of over 153 million individuals. This breach not only led to financial losses for those affected but also damaged their credit standings.

Personal Information

Identity theft breaches focus on personal information, such as names and social security numbers, allowing criminals to assume another person’s identity. The massive Yahoo breach affected up to 1.5 billion accounts in 2013, with hackers stealing email addresses and security questions, opening the door to fraudulent activities under the victims’ names.

Health Information

Unauthorized access to medical histories and insurance information reached new heights in 2023 with 133 million records exposed through 26 breaches. Among these, the largest breach impacted over 11 million individuals, marking it as the second-largest healthcare data breach ever recorded.

Intellectual Property

Another type of data targeted in breaches is intellectual property, which includes patents, trade secrets, blueprints, customer lists, and contracts. The theft of such sensitive information undermines innovation and can give competitors an unfair advantage, disrupting market dynamics and potentially leading to a drop in stock prices.

How to Prevent Data Breaches

Best practices for data breach prevention

Preventing data breaches is proactive; prevention focuses on stopping breaches before they happen, unlike reactive measures that address or mitigate the issue after a breach occurs (more on that later.) Prevention starts with a strong awareness of baseline security measures that are required for protecting sensitive information.

Let’s review some best practices, categorized by data breach type.

Protect Against Potential Loss or Theft

Proactively safeguard your data in case a loss or theft occurs, by encrypting your data. Encryption scrambles information, making it unreadable without a special key. Encrypt data on laptops, desktops, and mobile devices using built-in security features or third-party encryption software to turn your sensitive information into a code that only someone with the correct key can unlock. This way, even if stolen, your data remains useless to thieves.

It’s also recommended to use strong, unique passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all user accounts. MFA requires a second verification code, like a text message or fingerprint scan, to access accounts. This makes stolen passwords less valuable to attackers.

Other potentially powerful additions to your security are user behavior analytics (UBA) and traffic analysis capabilities. Empowered by AI, your security system will then be capable of pinpointing malicious traffic and distinguishing legitimate traffic, such as search engine, copyright, and site monitoring bots, from malicious botnet activity.

Preempt Human Error

Within organizations, regular security awareness training equips employees to identify phishing attempts (fake emails or websites designed to steal information). Training also teaches them to avoid suspicious links and attachments and handle sensitive information with care. Individuals can also find online courses to help them spot suspicious activity before they click on a dangerous link, download crippling malware, or unintentionally share sensitive information with unauthorized people.

Establishing and enforcing clear policies for secure data sharing and storage can also significantly reduce the chances of accidental data exposure. Organizations should only grant access to data based on the “need-to-know” principle, meaning only those whose roles specifically require it should have access.

Prevent Malicious Insider or Outsider Attacks

Now that you’ve protected against loss and theft, and have implemented training to preempt human error, here are additional steps you should take to prevent malicious attacks, led by your IT Security team:

  • Patch your software regularly: Software updates often include security patches that fix vulnerabilities that hackers were previously able to exploit. Updating all software and operating systems promptly closes these security gaps and strengthens your defenses. Perform penetration testing to determine the need for patches.
  • Deploy firewalls, IDS, and encryption: Firewalls like Gcore WAAP act as a barrier between your network and the internet, blocking unauthorized access attempts. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) monitor your network for suspicious activity, like attempted breaches. Encryption adds an extra layer of protection, making stolen data unreadable.
  • Regularly back up your data to a secure location: Routinely save copies of your data to an external hard drive, cloud service, or another secure off-site storage to ensure that a duplicate exists. This allows you to restore critical information in case of a breach or other disaster.
  • Operate according to a zero-trust model: Enable and teach employees to adopt a zero-trust model, which assumes no user or device is inherently trustworthy and requires verification for all access attempts. This extra layer of caution helps prevent unauthorized access, even if an employee is tricked.
  • Develop and test a disaster recovery plan: Outline steps to mitigate a security incident and resume operations quickly.
  • Train your staff: Regularly train employees on best practices for data security and the importance of protecting sensitive information. This includes awareness about phishing, proper data handling, and secure device use.

How to Mitigate Data Breaches

While prevention is ideal, even the most secure systems can be subject to human error and breach. Here’s a quick response guide to minimize damage if a breach occurs:

  • Detect: Implement a robust software detection system to monitor for signs of illicit access or suspicious activities, such as unusual login attempts or surprise data movements. Gcore WAAP actively scans incoming traffic in real time, ensuring swift detection of potential breach attempts. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems can also become a powerful addition to your security posture.
  • Contain: Once a breach is detected, the top priority is to contain it and prevent further damage. WAAP automatically blocks and isolates data identified as part of a zero-day or OWASP list of attacks, as well as a custom policies list. It is capable of detecting malicious traffic and evasive bots, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access.
  • Eradicate: With the breach contained, IT team members must eliminate the underlying security weakness by removing malware, closing unauthorized access points, and patching vulnerabilities.
  • Report and recover: Have your IT team communicate the breach to affected parties and develop a recovery plan that includes restoring lost data and updating your policies to reflect lessons learned. Work with Gcore’s security experts to develop a protection plan to avoid future breaches, you can book a free demo and get started today.

Conclusion

Data breaches can be devastating, but they’re preventable. Distinguishing between accidental and malicious data breaches and the methods used to execute them can help you develop a layered defense strategy that enhances your organization’s security posture and keeps personal, financial, and other customer data in your rightful hands.

Looking for a comprehensive data security solution to help prevent data breaches? Gcore WAAP protects against all types of hacks, from zero-day to those on the OWASP list, that can lead to hacking and data compromise. As a result, WAAP helps ensure your business is safe from data breaches, protecting your organizational reputation and your bottom line.

Request a free demo of Gcore WAAP

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3 underestimated security risks of AI workloads and how to overcome them

Artificial intelligence workloads introduce a fundamentally different security landscape for engineering and security teams. Unlike traditional applications, AI systems must protect not just endpoints and networks, but also training data pipelines, feature stores, model repositories, and inference APIs. Each phase of the AI life cycle presents distinct attack vectors that adversaries can exploit to corrupt model behavior, extract proprietary logic, or manipulate downstream outputs.In this article, we uncover three security vulnerabilities of AI workloads and explain how developers and MLOps teams can overcome them. We also look at how investing in your AI security can save time and money, explore the challenges that lie ahead for AI security, and offer a simplified way to protect your AI workloads with Gcore.Risk #1: data poisoningData poisoning is a targeted attack on the integrity of AI systems, where malicious actors subtly inject corrupted or manipulated data into training pipelines. The result is a model that behaves unpredictably, generates biased or false outputs, or embeds hidden logic that can be triggered post-deployment. This can undermine business-critical applications—from fraud detection and medical diagnostics to content moderation and autonomous decision-making.For developers, the stakes are high: poisoned models are hard to detect once deployed, and even small perturbations in training data can have system-wide consequences. Luckily, you can take a few steps to mitigate against data poisoning and then implement zero-trust AI to further protect your workloads.Mitigation and hardeningRestrict dataset access using IAM, RBAC, or identity-aware proxies.Store all datasets in versioned, signed, and hashed formats.Validate datasets with automated schema checks, label distribution scans, and statistical outlier detection before training.Track data provenance with metadata logs and checksums.Block training runs if datasets fail predefined data quality gates.Integrate data validation scripts into CI/CD pipelines pre-training.Enforce zero-trust access policies for data ingestion services.Solution integration: zero-trust AIImplement continuous authentication and authorization for each component interacting with data (e.g., preprocessing scripts, training jobs).Enable real-time threat detection during training using runtime security tools.Automate incident response triggers for unexpected file access or data source changes.Risk #2: adversarial attacksAdversarial attacks manipulate model inputs in subtle ways that trick AI systems into making incorrect or dangerous decisions. These perturbations—often imperceptible to humans—can cause models to misclassify images, misinterpret speech, or misread sensor data. In high-stakes environments like facial recognition, autonomous vehicles, or fraud detection, these failures can result in security breaches, legal liabilities, or physical harm.For developers, the threat is real: even state-of-the-art models can be easily fooled without adversarial hardening. The good news? You can make your models more robust by combining defensive training techniques, input sanitization, and secure API practices. While encrypted inference doesn’t directly block adversarial manipulation, it ensures that sensitive inference data stays protected even if attackers attempt to probe the system.Mitigation and hardeningUse adversarial training frameworks like CleverHans or IBM ART to expose models to perturbed inputs during training.Apply input sanitization layers (e.g., JPEG re-encoding, blurring, or noise filters) before data reaches the model.Implement rate limiting and authentication on inference APIs to block automated adversarial probing.Use model ensembles or randomized smoothing to improve resilience to small input perturbations.Log and analyze input-output patterns to detect high-variance or abnormal responses.Test models regularly against known attack vectors using robustness evaluation tools.Solution integration: encrypted inferenceWhile encryption doesn't prevent adversarial inputs, it does mean that input data and model responses remain confidential and protected from observation or tampering during inference.Run inference in trusted environments like Intel SGX or AWS Nitro Enclaves to protect model and data integrity.Use homomorphic encryption or SMPC to process encrypted data without exposing sensitive input.Ensure that all intermediate and output data is encrypted at rest and in transit.Deploy access policies that restrict inference to verified users and approved applications.Risk #3: model leakage of intellectual assetsModel leakage—or model extraction—happens when an attacker interacts with a deployed model in ways that allow them to reverse-engineer its structure, logic, or parameters. Once leaked, a model can be cloned, monetized, or used to bypass the very defenses it was meant to enforce. For businesses, this means losing competitive IP, compromising user privacy, or enabling downstream attacks.For developers and MLOps teams, the challenge is securing deployed models in a way that balances performance and privacy. If you're exposing inference APIs, you’re exposing potential entry points—but with the right controls and architecture, you can drastically reduce the risk of model theft.Mitigation and hardeningEnforce rate limits and usage quotas on all inference endpoints.Monitor for suspicious or repeated queries that indicate model extraction attempts.Implement model watermarking or fingerprinting to trace unauthorized model use.Obfuscate models before deployment using quantization, pruning, or graph rewriting.Disable or tightly control any model export functionality in your platform.Sign and verify inference requests and responses to ensure authenticity.Integrate security checks into CI/CD pipelines to detect risky configurations—such as public model endpoints, export-enabled containers, or missing inference authentication—before they reach production.Solution integration: native security integrationIntegrate model validation, packaging, and signing into CI/CD pipelines.Serve models from encrypted containers or TEEs, with minimal runtime exposure.Use container and image scanning tools to catch misconfigurations before deployment.Centralize monitoring and protection with tools like Gcore WAAP for real-time anomaly detection and automated response.How investing in AI security can save your business moneyFrom a financial point of view, the use of AI and machine learning in cybersecurity can lead to massive cost savings. Organizations that utilize AI and automation in cybersecurity have saved an average of $2.22 million per data breach compared to organizations that do not have these protections in place. This is because the necessity for manual oversight is reduced, lowering the total cost of ownership, and averting costly security breaches. The initial investment in advanced security technologies yields returns through decreased downtime, fewer false positives, and an enhanced overall security posture.Challenges aheadWhile securing the AI lifecycle is essential, it’s still difficult to balance robust security with a positive user experience. Rigid scrutiny can add additional latency or false positives that can stop operations, but AI-powered security can avoid such incidents.Another concern organizations must contend with is how to maintain current AI models. With threats changing so rapidly, today's newest model could easily become outdated by tomorrow’s. Solutions must have an ongoing learning ability so that security detection parameters can be revised.Operational maturity is also a concern, especially for companies that operate in multiple geographies. Well-thought-out strategies and sound governance processes must accompany the integration of complex AI/ML tools with existing infrastructure, but automation still offers the most benefits by reducing the overhead on security teams and helping ensure consistent deployment of security policies.Get ahead of AI security with GcoreAI workloads introduce new and often overlooked security risks that can compromise data integrity, model behavior, and intellectual property. By implementing practices like zero-trust architecture, encrypted inference, and native security integration, developers can build more resilient and trustworthy AI systems. As threats evolve, staying ahead means embedding security at every phase of the AI lifecycle.Gcore helps teams apply these principles at scale, offering native support for zero-trust AI, encrypted inference, and intelligent API protection. As an experienced AI and security solutions provider, our DDoS Protection and AI-enabled WAAP solutions integrate natively with Everywhere Inference and GPU Cloud across 210+ global points of presence. That means low latency, high performance, and proven, robust security, no matter where your customers are located.Talk with our AI security experts and secure your workloads today

Flexible DDoS mitigation with BGP Flowspec cover image

Flexible DDoS mitigation with BGP Flowspec

For customers who understand their own network traffic patterns, rigid DDoS protection can be more of a limitation than a safeguard. That’s why Gcore supports BGP Flowspec: a flexible, standards-based method for defining granular filters that block or rate-limit malicious traffic in real time…before it reaches your infrastructure.In this article, we’ll walk through:What Flowspec is and how it worksThe specific filters and actions Gcore supportsCommon use cases, with example rule definitionsHow to activate and monitor Flowspec in your environmentWhat is the BGP Flowspec?BGP Flowspec (RFC 8955) extends Border Gateway Protocol to distribute traffic filtering rules alongside routing updates. Instead of static ACLs or reactive blackholing, Flowspec enables near-instantaneous propagation of mitigation rules across networks.BGP tells routers how to reach IP prefixes across the internet. With Flowspec, those same BGP announcements can now carry rules, not just routes. Each rule describes a pattern of traffic (e.g., TCP SYN packets >1000 bytes from a specific subnet) and what action to take (drop, rate-limit, mark, or redirect).What are the benefits of the BGP Flowspec?Most traditional DDoS protection services react to threats after they start, whether by blackholing traffic to a target IP, redirecting flows to a scrubbing center, or applying rigid, static filters. These approaches can block legitimate traffic, introduce latency, or be too slow to respond to fast-evolving attacks.Flowspec offers a more flexible alternative.Proactive mitigation: Instead of waiting for attacks, you can define known-bad traffic patterns ahead of time and block them instantly. Flowspec lets experienced operators prevent incidents before they start.Granular filtering: You’re not limited to blocking by IP or port. With Flowspec, you can match on packet size, TCP flags, ICMP codes, and more, enabling fine-tuned control that traditional ACLs or RTBH don’t support.Edge offloading: Filtering happens directly on Gcore’s routers, offloading your infrastructure and avoiding scrubbing latency.Real-time updates: Changes to rules are distributed across the network via BGP and take effect immediately, faster than manual intervention or standard blackholing.You still have the option to block traffic during an active attack, but with Flowspec, you gain the flexibility to protect services with minimal disruption and greater precision than conventional tools allow.Which parts of the Flowspec does Gcore implement?Gcore supports twelve filter types and four actions of the Flowspec.Supported filter typesGcore supports all 12 standard Flowspec match components.Filter FieldDescriptionDestination prefixTarget subnet (usually your service or app)Source prefixSource of traffic (e.g., attacker IP range)IP protocolTCP, UDP, ICMP, etc.Port / Source portMatch specific client or server portsDestination portMatch destination-side service portsICMP type/codeFilter echo requests, errors, etc.TCP flagsFilter packets by SYN, ACK, RST, FIN, combinationsPacket lengthFilter based on payload sizeDSCPQuality of service code pointFragmentMatch on packet fragmentation characteristicsSupported actionsGcore DDoS Protection supports the following Flowspec actions, which can be triggered when traffic matches a specific filter:ActionDescriptionTraffic-rate (0x8006)Throttle/rate limit traffic by byte-per-second rateredirectRedirect traffic to alternate location (e.g., scrubbing)traffic-markingApply DSCP marks for downstream classificationno-action (drop)Drop packets (rate-limit 0)Rule orderingRFC 5575 defines the implicit order of Flowspec rules. The crucial point is that more specific announcements take preference, not the order in which the rules are propagated.Gcore also respects Flowspec rule ordering per RFC 5575. More specific filters override broader ones. Future support for Flowspec v2 (with explicit ordering) is under consideration, pending vendor adoption.Blackholing and extended blackholing (eBH)Remote-triggered blackhole (RTBH) is a standardized protection method that the client manages via BGP by analyzing traffic, identifying the direction of the attack (i.e., the destination IP address). This method protects against volumetric attacks.Customers using Gcore IP Transit can trigger immediate blackholing for attacked prefixes via BGP, using the well-known blackhole community tag 65000:666. All traffic to that destination IP is dropped at Gcore’s edge.The list of supported BGP communities is available here.BGP extended blackholeExtended blackhole (eBH) allows for more granular blackholing that does not affect legitimate traffic. For customers unable to implement Flowspec directly, Gcore supports eBH. You announce target prefixes with pre-agreed BGP communities, and Gcore translates them into Flowspec mitigations.To configure this option, contact our NOC at noc@gcore.lu.Monitoring and limitationsGcore can support several logging transports, including mail and Slack.If the number of Flowspec prefixes exceeds the configured limit, Gcore DDoS Protection stops accepting new announcements, but BGP sessions and existing prefixes will stay active. Gcore will receive a notification that you reached the limit.How to activateActivation takes just two steps:Define rules on your edge router using Flowspec NLRI formatAnnounce rules via BGP to Gcore’s intermediate control planeThen, Gcore validates and propagates the filters to border routers. Filters are installed on edge devices and take effect immediately.If attack patterns are unknown, you’ll first need to detect anomalies using your existing monitoring stack, then define the appropriate Flowspec rules.Need help activating Flowspec? Get in touch via our 24/7 support channels and our experts will be glad to assist.Set up GRE and benefit from Flowspec today

Securing AI from the ground up: defense across the lifecycle

As more AI workloads shift to the edge for lower latency and localized processing, the attack surface expands. Defending a data center is old news. Now, you’re securing distributed training pipelines, mobile inference APIs, and storage environments that may operate independently of centralized infrastructure, especially in edge or federated learning contexts. Every stage introduces unique risks. Each one needs its own defenses.Let’s walk through the key security challenges across each phase of the AI lifecycle, and the hardening strategies that actually work.PhaseTop threatsHardening stepsTrainingData poisoning, leaksValidation, dataset integrity tracking, RBAC, adversarial trainingDevelopmentModel extraction, inversionRate limits, obfuscation, watermarking, penetration testingInferenceAdversarial inputs, spoofed accessInput filtering, endpoint auth, encryption, TEEsStorage and deploymentModel theft, tamperingEncrypted containers, signed builds, MFA, anomaly monitoringTraining: your model is only as good as its dataThe training phase sets the foundation. If the data going in is poisoned, biased, or tampered with, the model will learn all the wrong lessons and carry those flaws into production.Why it mattersData poisoning is subtle. You won’t see a red flag during training logs or a catastrophic failure at launch. These attacks don’t break training, they bend it.A poisoned model may appear functional, but behaves unpredictably, embeds logic triggers, or amplifies harmful bias. The impact is serious later in the AI workflow: compromised outputs, unexpected behavior, or regulatory non-compliance…not due to drift, but due to training-time manipulation.How to protect itValidate datasets with schema checks, label audits, and outlier detection.Version, sign, and hash all training data to verify integrity and trace changes.Apply RBAC and identity-aware proxies (like OPA or SPIFFE) to limit who can alter or inject data.Use adversarial training to improve model robustness against manipulated inputs.Development and testing: guard the logicOnce you’ve got a trained model, the next challenge is protecting the logic itself: what it knows and how it works. The goal here is to make attacks economically unfeasible.Why it mattersModels encode proprietary logic. When exposed via poorly secured APIs or unprotected inference endpoints, they’re vulnerable to:Model inversion: Extracting training dataExtraction: Reconstructing logicMembership inference: Revealing whether a datapoint was in trainingHow to protect itApply rate limits, logging, and anomaly detection to monitor usage patterns.Disable model export by default. Only enable with approval and logging.Use quantization, pruning, or graph obfuscation to reduce extractability.Explore output fingerprinting or watermarking to trace unauthorized use in high-value inference scenarios.Run white-box and black-box adversarial evaluations during testing.Integrate these security checks into your CI/CD pipeline as part of your MLOps workflow.Inference: real-time, real riskInference doesn’t get a free pass because it’s fast. Security needs to be just as real-time as the insights your AI delivers.Why it mattersAdversarial attacks exploit the way models generalize. A single pixel change or word swap can flip the classification.When inference powers fraud detection or autonomous systems, a small change can have a big impact.How to protect itSanitize input using JPEG compression, denoising, or frequency filtering.Train on adversarial examples to improve robustness.Enforce authentication and access control for all inference APIs—no open ports.Encrypt inference traffic with TLS. For added privacy, use trusted execution environments (TEEs).For highly sensitive cases, consider homomorphic encryption or SMPC—strong but compute-intensive solutions.Check out our free white paper on inference optimization.Storage and deployment: don’t let your model leakOnce your model’s trained and tested, you’ve still got to deploy and store it securely—often across multiple locations.Why it mattersUnsecured storage is a goldmine for attackers. With access to the model binary, they can reverse-engineer, clone, or rehost your IP.How to protect itStore models on encrypted volumes or within enclaves.Sign and verify builds before deployment.Enforce MFA, RBAC, and immutable logging on deployment pipelines.Monitor for anomalous access patterns—rate, volume, or source-based.Edge strategy: security that moves with your AIAs AI moves to the edge, centralized security breaks down. You need protection that operates as close to the data as your inference does.That’s why we at Gcore integrate protection into AI workflows from start to finish:WAAP and DDoS mitigation at edge nodes—not just centralized DCs.Encrypted transport (TLS 1.3) and in-node processing reduce exposure.Inline detection of API abuse and L7 attacks with auto-mitigation.180+ global PoPs to maintain consistency across regions.AI security is lifecycle securityNo single firewall, model tweak, or security plugin can secure AI workloads in isolation. You need defense in depth: layered, lifecycle-wide protections that work at the data layer, the API surface, and the edge.Ready to secure your AI stack from data to edge inference?Talk to our AI security experts

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