By Zach Lemley, Vice President of Information Security at Vultr
Public sector organizations need more than speed when it comes to the cloud and scaling AI. They need security and sovereignty they can trust. According to recent S&P Global survey data, 84% of government IT leaders named security and compliance a top criterion for cloud deployments, ahead of cost and performance. They understand that speed without security is not progress, it is risk.
At Vultr, we built our platform on a different premise. Security is not a feature we added later or a checkbox we tick for compliance. It is the foundation of everything we engineer, the culture that drives every architectural decision, and the commitment that underpins every customer relationship.
In this piece, I share how we designed Vultr with security at its core and how that foundation empowers public sector agencies and enterprises to scale AI workloads confidently.
Security built in, not bolted on
Our mission is straightforward: Every customer workload on Vultr, whether training an AI model, running a healthcare application, or managing critical financial systems, must be deployed on infrastructure that is secure by design, as part of a shared responsibility model.
Too often, cloud providers retrofit security after scale has been reached. We took the opposite approach. From our first line of code, Vultr has been architected with in-depth defense, zero trust principles, and operational security hardened into every layer.
Our network architecture implements isolation at three distinct levels: Hypervisor separation ensures workloads cannot interact at the virtualization layer, VLAN segmentation creates logical boundaries between customer environments, and edge protection filters malicious traffic before it reaches production systems. Management planes run on dedicated infrastructure completely isolated from customer workloads, eliminating a common attack vector that has compromised other providers.
This comes to life in efficient ways. Administrators authenticate through enterprise SSO with conditional access policies that evaluate device posture, telemetry, and behavioral patterns. We mandate that hardware-backed SSH keys be rotated every 24 hours, and physical FIDO2 security tokens be required for all privileged operations – no personal devices. No shortcuts. For customer workloads, encryption is not optional – it is the default. Every connection uses TLS 1.3 with forward secrecy, and every volume uses AES-256 encryption at rest. Customers who require additional control can bring their own encryption keys and manage the entire key lifecycle independently. We designed our key management architecture so Vultr never has access to customer-managed keys, eliminating a trust boundary concerning many enterprises.
Workload isolation goes beyond logical separation. We provision dedicated CPU cores and memory allocations for each customer instance, eliminating the "noisy neighbor" problem that plagues shared infrastructure. Customers control their network security policies through microsegmented firewall rules, private VPC configurations, and VLAN isolation that they manage directly.
The threat landscape never stops evolving, and neither do we. We participate in industry threat intelligence working groups, conduct continuous penetration testing with independent red teams who actively attempt to breach our defenses, and maintain partnerships with security researchers who alert us to emerging attack patterns. When we identify a vulnerability, we can deploy security patches rapidly across our infrastructure, typically restoring service in under a minute without disruption.
A safer kind of cloud
Security architecture means nothing without operational discipline. Our defense-in-depth model eliminates single points of failure through independent overlapping controls. If one layer fails, others continue protecting customer workloads. Our microsegmented trust model enforces least-privilege access, requires multi-person approvals, and logs every administrative action to immutable audit trails that support forensic investigation. Our transparent security model means clear shared responsibility boundaries, regular audits, and visibility into what protections are in place.
Transparency defines our security model. We publish clear shared responsibility boundaries so customers understand precisely which controls we manage and which they control. While hyperscalers emphasize breadth, Vultr emphasizes precision and control. Instead of “black box” policies, we give customers visibility and choice. And your existing security practices, like standard protocols, open-source tooling, and portable policies, work here. That is critical for teams running hybrid or multicloud strategies, where consistency is non-negotiable.
Proof in practice
Security claims require evidence.
Healthcare providers like Medidex run HIPAA-compliant workloads on Vultr infrastructure because we provide the technical controls and audit evidence their compliance programs require. Pharmaceutical innovators like MindWalk trust Vultr to scale complex AI workloads that accelerate therapeutic discovery because we protect their intellectual property with the same rigor they apply internally. Financial services firms operating under the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act deploy on Vultr because our architecture and compliance certifications meet their regulatory obligations.
Government and defense agencies choose Vultr for a different but equally important reason: sovereignty. The same S&P Global data shows that nearly half of government agencies prefer alternative cloud providers over hyperscalers for AI infrastructure, driven by sovereignty mandates and concerns about vendor lock-in. We built Vultr specifically for compliance-ready infrastructure, sovereignty-focused architecture, and direct customer control over security posture without dependency on proprietary services.
Security is also about using infrastructure responsibly. We support ethical AI with monitoring and audit tools and actively prevent the misuse of our platforms for harmful purposes.
People behind the platform
Technology creates capability, but people create security. We back our infrastructure with 24-hour global security operations, rapid-response SLAs that commit to specific timeframes for incident response, and dedicated security contacts for enterprise customers who need direct access to our team.
Our security operations center continuously monitors our infrastructure, using real-time security logging integrated with SIEM platforms, network flow monitoring that detects anomalous patterns, and complete API audit logs that track every action affecting customer workloads. When we detect threats, we respond immediately with predefined playbooks tested through tabletop exercises and live incident simulations.
We maintain a minimal attack surface by running only essential services, implementing automated security patching with rollback capabilities, and conducting regular vulnerability scanning followed by rapid remediation. Our network security includes DDoS protection at both edge and transit layers, private networking options that isolate customer traffic, and built-in web application firewall capabilities with rate limiting for load balancers.
Trust isn’t claimed – it’s earned
We demonstrate it daily by building security into every layer of our architecture and through our commitment to compliance. For public sector organizations entrusted with the most sensitive data, trust isn’t just a promise; it’s a living practice.
We earn that trust by building security into every architectural layer, being transparent about our controls and limitations, submitting to independent audits and sharing results, and responding to incidents quickly and honestly when they occur.
Security is not a destination. It is continuous practice, constant vigilance, and relentless improvement. At Vultr, that practice defines who we are and how we operate. Every customer workload deserves infrastructure built to protect it, and every organization deserves a cloud provider they can trust.
If you have questions about our security architecture, compliance certifications, or how we can support your specific requirements, contact our security team directly. We built Vultr to be trusted with your most critical workloads, and we are prepared to demonstrate why that trust is well-placed.