DeepSeek
2025- Sector
- AI
- What was reported
- A publicly accessible database belonging to the AI company leaked more than a million log lines, including chat history and secret keys.
Control by Firevault / AI Control
AI Control.Keep authority over external connections.
AI systems can connect to data, tools, services and other systems. Control by Firevault governs selected network paths under independent human authority, without claiming to stop a model or its local computation.
Who can withdraw an AI system’s external connections independently of its task?
Incident
Path exposed
Outcome
Control taken
Approximately 120–150 ms
Management enable/disable operation
Around 2–3 seconds
SMS round-trip operation, good signal
March 2025 test observations, not guaranteed timings.
Why connection control matters
A connection change is a service decision.
Withdrawal of a connection can stop a dependent service or remove feedback an autonomous system needs. Continued local computation and physical behaviour require their own safety measures.
An AI workload may have access beyond the intended task, or communicate through more than one route. Application policy and identity controls remain necessary; physical intervention applies only to the paths placed under Control.
Reported incidents in related sectors
CloudNordic
2023- Sector
- Data Centres
- What was reported
- Ransomware reached the hosting company’s management and backup systems through an internal network. Most customers lost all their data.
Collins Aerospace
- Sector
- Aviation & Aerospace
- What was reported
- A cyber attack on check-in and boarding software disrupted several European airports, which fell back to manual processing.
These incidents show how a connection path can shape what happens next. They are not claims about what any single control would have prevented.
What Control changes
Three things you can control physically.
Control complements your network security, detection, identity management and incident response. It does not replace them. It gives their decisions a physical place to act, on the connections you select.
Control access
Govern when selected connections may exist.
Supplier, engineering and partner routes are connected for approved work, to named systems, for a set window, and disconnected afterwards. Not open by default.
Control Plans
Control third-party connectionsControl connections in two approved stages
Control exposure
Reduce unnecessary standing paths into critical systems.
Each critical system keeps the connections it genuinely needs, inside a defined physical boundary. Paths it does not need are disconnected.
Control Plans
Enforce physical network boundariesProtect critical system connections
Control intervention
Physically disconnect selected connections under an agreed authority.
When your response plan calls for it, the selected path is physically disconnected on a decision by the people or rules you agreed in advance, and stays disconnected until an authorised release.
Control Plans
Contain ransomware spreadContain a live incidentAuthorise emergency disconnection
Where Control applies & Control modules
AI Control. The Modules that make a difference.
An inference environment accesses an external tool through a defined gateway. An authorised operator may withdraw that gateway connection if activity exceeds the agreed operating boundary.
Where do you need Control?
Selected AI connection withdrawn
Withdraw selected AI connectivity under human authority.
Execute carries out the approved intervention, Fracture interrupts the selected external connection, and Transfer governs a purpose-bound data-movement path used by separate tools. Local computation and cached instructions may continue.
- Commanded
- Authorise intervention on the registered external AI connection.
- Reported by the control point
- Illustrative selected external paths disconnected.
- Independently verified
- Check actual links and local system behaviour separately; no model shutdown is implied.
Concept illustration. Commanded, reported and independently verified states are shown separately because they are not the same thing, and what can be verified depends on your deployment. Disconnecting a selected path changes what can use that path. On its own, it does not contain an incident across a whole environment, and routes outside the plan, such as wireless or cellular links, need their own controls.
Control Blueprints
Your industry’s connections, mapped and controlled.
How AI Control applies in the industries where these connections matter most. Each Blueprint maps real systems, suppliers and operating constraints.
AI
AI systems, agents and their routes into data and operations.
Read the AI Blueprint
Data Centres
Tenant isolation and cross-connect governance.
Read the Data Centres Blueprint
Aviation & Aerospace
Airport, airline and aerospace networks.
Read the Aviation & Aerospace Blueprint
Defence
Classified enclaves and test ranges.
Read the Defence BlueprintSee all industry Blueprints
Fourteen Blueprints are published. Each deployment is designed around your own estate.
Firevault, as featured in
How Control works
Decisions made by people. Enforced physically.
Your tools detect, your people and policies decide, and Control changes the connection state of the selected path. Here is what that rests on.
Physical enforcement
Control changes the connection state of a selected path at Layer 1: connected, or physically disconnected. It does not inspect or alter the traffic on it.
An independent command path
Commands reach each control point over a configured command path, kept separate from the network being controlled. How each point behaves if that path is lost is agreed and tested.
Authorised changes
Who can connect, disconnect or release each path is agreed in advance: named people, more than one approval where it matters, or rules and high-confidence alerts you set.
Evidence, as configured
Commands, approvals and reported states can be recorded for your deployment, so you can show what changed, when, and on whose authority.
Before you deploy
Physical control is an operational decision.
Confirm the selected paths, supporting systems and failure behaviour in the actual environment. No generic drawing can substitute for this assessment.
- AI compute and inference environmentsInventory every data, tool and communications path, including routes outside the proposed boundary.
- External data and tool-access gatewaysDefine independent authorisation without assuming a built-in multi-party workflow.
- Partner and supplier connectionsAssess safe behaviour when feedback, communications or a remote service disappears.
- Communications used by autonomous systemsUse the AI Kill Switch briefing for the specialist physical-intervention application.
Control governs the selected paths in your plan. It does not inspect traffic, and wireless, cellular and other routes outside the plan need their own controls.
Straight answers
No. They detect, filter and investigate. Control adds a physical way to act on the selected paths when your people, or rules you have agreed, decide to.
No. It changes whether a selected path is connected. It does not read or change what travels on it.
It can, which is why the dependencies, safe states and restoration steps for each path are agreed and tested with your operations and safety owners before anything goes live.
It controls selected connectivity. Disconnecting a path removes the connections an AI system was using and gives people an independent way to intervene. It does not necessarily stop a model or process running locally.
No. Control governs connections. Keeping data physically offline is Offline Secure Storage®, a separate Firevault product that can sit alongside Control.
Yes. Start with one connection: a supplier route, an IT–OT crossing, or the path to one critical system.
Your next step
Start with one critical connection.
Begin with one external tool connection. Agree its purpose, intervention authority, dependencies and the checks that make restoration acceptable.
Discuss your Control requirements