egress

NAT is not a firewall, and inbound rules are only half a policy. Interviewers check whether you know what each device decides, and why the outbound direction is where breaches are contained.

Sending prompts to a provider is a data flow like any other. The scored answer keeps it on private paths where possible, forces all model traffic through one controlled exit, and blocks everything else.

Inbound is blocked, so the compromised host calls out. That single design choice tells defenders where to look: unusual parents spawning shells with network connections, and regular outbound traffic to places nobody else visits.

Headlines promised self-writing AI malware. The reports show something narrower and more useful to defenders: malware with a dependency on someone else's API. The scored answer separates hype from evidence and turns that dependency into detections.