Dear users of the de.NBI Cloud Tuebingen,
AI-assisted workflows are becoming increasingly common and are now tightly integrated into existing development tools and IDEs, particularly tools such as Copilot. However, the use of these tools introduces several concerns, especially for projects under the category of "Sensitive Data."
Under certain circumstances and configurations, Copilot and similar AI-assisted development tools may have access to files within your working environment, including your local working directories and mounted storage volumes on VMs. If sensitive data is accessible from your working VM, an AI-assisted tool operating within that environment could potentially access and process this data. Such exposure could represent a significant violation of data security, privacy requirements, and institutional policies. Additionally, credentials, including passwords, private keys, access tokens, API keys, certificates, and other secrets should never be accessible to AI-assisted tools. Credentials should be managed using appropriate secure mechanisms.
The recommended workflow is to maintain a strict separation and isolation between AI-assisted development environments and environments containing sensitive data. Users are encouraged to develop, build, and test their code on local machines or isolated environments that have no access to sensitive data. Once the code has been sufficiently developed and validated, it may then be deployed to the appropriate production or secure environment, where it can be executed over the required datasets.
de.NBI Tuebingen does a best effort at ensuring the security, integrity, and safe handling of all data stored on site. However, this is a shared responsibility as the users play a critical role in maintaining their secure environment. Responsible and mindful use of computing resources, development tools, and data access privileges is essential to ensuring compliance with security requirements and protecting sensitive information.
Please reach out to us if you are uncertain regarding the appropriate workflow or AI-use within your project.
On behalf of the de.NBI Cloud Team
Mohamad Chehab