文献情報
- 作者
- Xinyi Hou,Jiahao Han,Yanjie Zhao,Haoyu Wang
- 公開日
- 2025-5-5
- 更新日
- 2025-8-26
- 所属機関
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology
- 所属の国
- China
- 会議名
- Computing Research Repository (CoRR)
Abstract
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed through open-source
and commercial frameworks, enabling individuals and organizations to self-host
advanced LLM capabilities. As LLM deployments become prevalent, particularly in
industry, ensuring their secure and reliable operation has become a critical
issue. However, insecure defaults and misconfigurations often expose LLM
services to the public internet, posing serious security and system engineering
risks. This study conducted a large-scale empirical investigation of
public-facing LLM deployments, focusing on the prevalence of services, exposure
characteristics, systemic vulnerabilities, and associated risks. Through
internet-wide measurements, we identified 320,102 public-facing LLM services
across 15 frameworks and extracted 158 unique API endpoints, categorized into
12 functional groups based on functionality and security risk. Our analysis
found that over 40% of endpoints used plain HTTP, and over 210,000 endpoints
lacked valid TLS metadata. API exposure was highly inconsistent: some
frameworks, such as Ollama, responded to over 35% of unauthenticated API
requests, with about 15% leaking model or system information, while other
frameworks implemented stricter controls. We observed widespread use of
insecure protocols, poor TLS configurations, and unauthenticated access to
critical operations. These security risks, such as model leakage, system
compromise, and unauthorized access, are pervasive and highlight the need for a
secure-by-default framework and stronger deployment practices.