AI Vendor Infiltration: The Intelligence Heist via Forward Deployed Engineers
A new threat model characterizes AI vendors using Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) to conduct "authorized infiltration" of client infrastructures. This vector bypasses traditional perimeter defenses by leveraging Master Service Agreement (MSA) "Aggregated Data" clauses to map proprietary business logic and undocumented workflows. Technical indicators include unusual FDE access patterns to internal Wikis, Jira boards, and undocumented API endpoints, alongside unauthorized telemetry pings to vendor servers. The impact is the systematic commoditization of client-specific intellectual property, resulting in significant knowledge leakage and the erosion of competitive advantages as unique operational workflows are ingested into vendor-side general-purpose models.