NVIDIA BlueField data processing units are purpose-built processors that offload, accelerate, and isolate infrastructure and security operations—enabling high-performance networking, data movement, and cybersecurity processing that power AI at scale. By offloading these functions from the host CPU into dedicated processing engines, BlueField enforces security policies autonomously—ensuring protection even if the host is compromised. Operating in a separate trust domain, it continuously monitors host behavior, application processes, traffic patterns and other indicators without impacting performance. This distributed, zero-trust security model enables line-speed visibility and enforcement, ensuring that every data packet and process interaction within the AI factory is both observable and secure.
A key element that makes AI Factory EDR possible is the integration of the DOCA Argus microservice, which provides real-time situational awareness and runtime threat detection by inspecting host memory using advanced memory forensics. Operating at the hardware level, Argus performs live machine introspection—analyzing specific segments of volatile host memory to detect threats in real time without impacting system performance. To preserve privacy, it extracts information only from kernel structures, never from user data.
Unlike conventional security tools, DOCA Argus runs independently of the host, requiring no agents, software integration, or reliance on host-based resources. This agentless, zero-overhead design enhances system efficiency and resilience across bare-metal, virtualized, containerized, and multi-tenant environments. By operating in an isolated trust domain, Argus remains invisible to attackers—even if the host system is compromised.
Argus continuously collects telemetry on flow data, processes events, and security metrics through Fluent Bit, streaming this information to the Trend Vision One™ Endpoint Security agent running on BlueField. The data is then correlated with Trend’s global threat intelligence, enabling rapid detection of threats such as credential abuse, reverse shells, and other malicious activities specific to AI workloads. This continuous feedback loop provides security teams with real-time, multi-layered visibility into workload behavior across network, host, and application layers—transforming raw telemetry into actionable insight and forensics evidence for investigation and response.
Detecting and Responding to Advanced Threats
Through this integration, AI Factory EDR addresses several critical security scenarios unique to AI infrastructures:
- Credential Dump Detection: AI environments often hold credentials for cloud services, data repositories, and internal systems. The solution monitors for unauthorized access attempts and credential harvesting activities that signal potential compromise.
- Reverse Shell Detection: Attackers frequently use reverse shells to gain persistent access to AI infrastructure. The DPU-based monitoring detects these covert communication patterns, even when hidden within legitimate AI traffic.
- Suspicious Object Detection: AI systems process massive volumes of data and host models. AI Factory EDR can identify suspicious files, malicious model payloads, or unauthorized data transfers that may indicate an attack or data exfiltration attempt.
- Threat Intelligence Correlation: Real-time telemetry from BlueField is fused with Trend’s global threat intelligence, enabling fast identification and response to emerging threats targeting AI infrastructure.
Transforming Cybersecurity for AI Factories
Trend Vision One AI Factory EDR, powered by NVIDIA BlueField, ushers in the next era of AI security, engineered into the operating system of the AI factory itself. By combining real-time analytics with hardware-level enforcement, it delivers resilient, zero-trust defense without impacting performance.
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