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Map the system’s trust boundaries
RAG distributes risk across a pipeline rather than removing it. The OWASP RAG Security Cheat Sheet describes new attack surfaces from ingestion through generation and output. Map both the request path and the separate ingestion path before choosing controls.
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A typical request path is: client → local router → identity and policy check → retriever and vector store → prompt assembly → model server → output checks → response or tool. Ingestion has its own path: source or connector → parser and chunker → embedding service → index. For every component, identify which identities can read data, write indexes, change policy, route requests, or invoke tools. AWS also recommends layered controls for generative AI systems in its security guidance for generative AI.
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Protect the router and model-serving boundary
Give each client, router, retriever, embedding service, index writer, and model server an authenticated identity with only the permissions it needs. Apply default-deny access to AI resources, and restrict network access to intended callers and services. Protect credentials as credentials: do not expose them to prompts, model context, logs, or processes that have no need to use them.
- Separate index-writing privileges from retrieval privileges. A component that answers questions usually should not also be able to alter its source index.
- Keep authorization decisions outside the model. The model should not be able to broaden its own retrieval scope, change access filters, or grant itself access to a service.
- Avoid giving the model process broad filesystem access, credentials, or direct access to sensitive APIs. Put constrained services between the model and any resource it needs.
- Preserve the original caller’s identity and authorization context through service-to-service calls; a broadly privileged service account is not a substitute for checking what that caller may access.
These are architecture-level controls, not a set of universal server flags. The correct configuration depends on the router, inference server, operating system, and vector database in use; no product-specific configuration can be assumed here.
Make ingestion controlled and reversible
Documents, connector output, and imported files are untrusted input. A poisoned or simply misclassified source can influence answers for every user who can retrieve its chunks. Validate and stage material before indexing, and scope connectors to the smallest set of sources they need.
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- Identify and validate the source. Record its source identity and integrity information, check that it is expected and permitted, and apply appropriate content screening before processing.
- Restrict the write path. Only designated ingestion services should be able to create or modify embeddings and index records. Log index changes and retain a way to roll back a bad ingestion.
- Attach security metadata. Preserve source, tenant, owner, classification, and allowed-principal information with each chunk so later retrieval can enforce the source’s access rules.
- Propagate removals and permission changes. When a source is removed or de-permissioned, update its chunks, embeddings, derived indexes, and relevant caches according to the system’s retention policy.
OWASP’s RAG Security Cheat Sheet identifies document poisoning and index tampering as risks and recommends controls such as integrity checks, restricted index writes, modification logs, and rollback capability.
Enforce authorization before retrieval and assembly
Authorization must follow the requester—not merely the identity of the service making the vector-store call. Keep permission metadata with every chunk, resolve the caller’s current authorization context, and apply it before restricted content or similarity information can be exposed. Recheck access during retrieval and response assembly because permissions may change after ingestion.
- Filter retrieval using the requester’s authorized principals, tenant, and classification scope before results leave the retrieval boundary.
- Do not retrieve broadly and then filter only after content has been returned to another component. That design can expose restricted chunks or information about matches before the filter runs.
- Use separate namespaces, collections, or indexes for distinct tenants or classification domains when appropriate to the threat model. Separation is useful, but still verify that every query is scoped correctly.
- Before returning an answer, ensure that cited or incorporated source material remains permitted for the requesting user.
OWASP AISVS 1.0, in its C5 access-control guidance, calls for explicit allow-lists and default-deny controls, with the end user’s authorization context enforced through retrieval and assembly. A local deployment still needs this identity propagation and enforcement.
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Treat prompts and retrieved documents as untrusted data
Prompt injection can arrive in a user request, a retrieved document, tool output, or a connected source. A document that says “ignore prior instructions” is still data; it is not an authorization decision. Clearly delimit retrieved passages and label them as untrusted content, keep the context relevant and bounded, and never let retrieved text change access filters or policy.
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OWASP’s Prompt Injection Prevention Cheat Sheet recommends layered input, output, and action screening. A guardrail model can add latency and cost, and it may itself be vulnerable. Treat it as one layer, not a replacement for input validation, least privilege, or human approval for destructive actions.
Validate answers and authorize actions independently
Do not treat generated text or a proposed tool call as trusted just because the model produced it. Check outputs against the requester’s permissions and the application’s policy before they reach a user or an automated workflow.
- Use structured schemas for automated outputs; reject invalid fields, unexpected values, and destinations the requester is not allowed to use.
- Apply response filtering or redaction when the answer could expose information beyond the caller’s access.
- Use a tool allow-list, and check each proposed action independently against both user intent and policy. The model’s decision to call a tool is not authorization.
- Keep the policy decision point separate from the tool-execution environment, and give each tool only the permissions needed for its task.
- Require explicit human confirmation for high-impact or irreversible actions such as deletion, payments, or external calls.
Isolate tenants, caches, and shared serving state
Shared infrastructure can cross security boundaries even when it is physically on one machine. Scope retrieval and inference caches to the same identity or tenant boundary as the request, and invalidate affected entries when permissions or source data change. Check that shared model-serving and embedding infrastructure does not expose one tenant’s information to another.
Test isolation directly: attempt cross-tenant retrieval, check whether a user can receive another user’s cached answer, and examine whether shared serving state can reveal information across requests. OWASP AISVS C5 identifies multi-tenant isolation in shared inference and embedding infrastructure as an access-control concern.
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Monitor the pipeline and fail closed
Keep enough audit information to investigate what influenced a response and what actions followed. Depending on the system’s sensitivity and retention rules, record the caller, retrieval identifiers and authorization context, source attribution, available model and policy versions, output-check results, and tool invocations. Restrict access to logs, since they may themselves contain sensitive data. Alert on abnormal retrieval patterns or unexpected tool use.
Test the boundaries, not only answer quality. Include prompt overrides, poisoned sources, stale permissions, cross-tenant retrieval, cache leakage, index tampering, and unauthorized tool calls. Verify that a denied request does not leak content through an error, a partial response, or a cached result.
If retrieval fails or an authorization check cannot be completed, do not quietly answer from model memory or return an unsafe partial result. Return no protected content, report an operational error, and alert where appropriate. Treat a failed retrieval or access check as a security-relevant event; OWASP’s RAG guidance recommends fail-closed behavior throughout the pipeline.
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Compare architectures by their security boundaries
For a local or hybrid design, compare the actual control points rather than assuming that deployment location determines security:
Quick Recap
- Control: Who operates the router, model server, embedding service, vector store, and connectors? Which component can read raw source data?
- Identity: Does the original user identity and permission context survive each hop, or does the system rely on one broad service account?
- Retrieval: Are permissions enforced before restricted chunks or similarity information can be exposed?
- Isolation: How are tenants, classifications, indexes, caches, and shared serving state separated for the threat model?
- Actions: Can the model invoke tools, and are those tools independently scoped and authorized?
- Audit and failure: Can operators identify the sources behind a response and reconstruct policy decisions? What happens when retrieval, authorization, or validation fails?
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