As more companies adopt AI agents with RAG architectures, a key security challenge arises: how to effectively implement and manage authorization within these complex systems? This talk explores the intricacies of overlaying authorization logic on AI agents, particularly within RAG architectures, and presents a context-aware solution using externalized authorization.

We’ll begin by examining a typical RAG architecture, its components and data flow, and the numerous potential security vulnerabilities inherent in this setup. We’ll also focus on the threats of unauthorized access to sensitive information within the company knowledge base or vector store.

The demo will cover several real-life examples where vulnerabilities in LLMs almost led to critical data breaches, as well as:

The structure of a typical RAG architecture and its components – Vector database, embedding model, LLM.

Security challenges in RAG systems, including data exposure risks and ensuring a user only gets insights on the data they are allowed to access.

Critical points where authorization checks need to be implemented.

Limitations of traditional role-based access control in AI contexts.

The concept of externalized authorization and its benefits.

A detailed look at how open-source authorization solutions can be integrated into RAG architectures.

We’ll also add a demo showing how an authorization solution can allow context-aware authorization decisions at various stages of the RAG pipeline, from initial query processing to final response generation. The demonstrated approach ensures that AI agents only access and utilize information the prompter is authorized to use, maintaining data security and compliance, without compromising the AI’s functionality.

CNCF members will leave with a clear understanding of the authorization challenges in AI agent architectures and practical strategies for implementing secure, scalable authorization.