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Industry-Leading AI Security for MCP Ecosystems

Runlayer ToolGuard is an industry-leading suite of specialized machine learning models that protect your MCP environment from tool poisoning, prompt injection, and output manipulation attacks. With fast 50-100ms inference times, ToolGuard delivers real-time threat detection without compromising performance.
Currently featuring two specialized threat classification models, with additional models in active development to address emerging attack vectors.

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The Models

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Tool List Guard

Scans tool definitions at registration to detect risky descriptions, prompt injection attempts, and hidden instructions before tools are made available to your environment.

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Tool Call Guard

Scans tool execution outputs in real-time to detect risky responses, data exfiltration attempts, and prompt injection before they reach your LLMs.

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Skill File Scanning

ToolGuard can also scan skill files uploaded to the platform. Each file’s content is analyzed using the same threat classification models, with results cached per content hash and scanner version. Large files are automatically chunked for processing. Skill file scanning runs when skills are uploaded via the CLI (skills push) or the API, producing per-file risk scores and an overall skill-level classification.

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LLM Risk Categorization

When Tool List Guard flags a tool at Medium or High risk, an LLM-based categorizer automatically classifies the threat into specific attack categories such as:
  • Prompt Injection
  • Data Exfiltration
  • Privilege Escalation
  • Hidden Instructions
These categories appear in security violation details and audit logs, replacing generic “risky tool” messages with actionable labels so you know what kind of threat was detected.
LLM categorization requires the Bedrock integration to be enabled in your deployment. When disabled, violations retain the default ToolGuard reason.
Additional specialized models are in development to address new attack vectors as they emerge in the MCP ecosystem.

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Why Industry-Leading?

Purpose-Built for MCP - Custom-trained threat classification models specifically designed for MCP ecosystem attacks. High Performance - Fast inference with typical scan times of 50-100ms. Continuously Evolving - Models are regularly refined based on emerging threat patterns. Battle-Tested - Deployed in production environments protecting real-world MCP deployments. Enterprise-Ready - Complete audit logging, flexible configuration, and Security Dashboard integration.

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Configuration

Navigate to Settings → Security Scanners to enable Runlayer ToolGuard models.

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Risk Tiers

Tool List Guard assigns a risk tier to each scanned tool based on its confidence score. The default thresholds are:
TierScore RangeMeaning
Minimal< 0.6Clean scan, no concern
Low0.6 – 0.7Low-confidence flag
Medium0.7 – 0.9Elevated risk, review recommended
High≥ 0.9High-confidence detection
Self-hosted deployments can tune these thresholds via environment variables:
  • RUNLAYER_TOOL_GUARD_LIST_RISK_THRESHOLD_LOW (default 0.6)
  • RUNLAYER_TOOL_GUARD_LIST_RISK_THRESHOLD_MEDIUM (default 0.7)
  • RUNLAYER_TOOL_GUARD_LIST_RISK_THRESHOLD_HIGH (default 0.9)
If you don’t see Runlayer ToolGuard options, you need to configure your Runlayer deployment to enable the GPU ToolGuard infrastructure. See deployment documentation for setup instructions.

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Monitoring

Security Dashboard - View detection timelines, violation trends, and common threat types Server Pages - Tool List Guard warnings appear directly on server detail pages when potentially risky tools are detected Audit Logs - Full history of detections, blocks, and configuration changes with confidence scores

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Best Practices

  • Use per-server overrides for high-risk external servers
  • Combine with MCP access policies for layered security
  • Review flagged tools with your security team before blocking

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Staying Ahead

Runlayer ToolGuard models are continuously refined based on emerging threat patterns in the MCP ecosystem. Our commitment to continuous innovation ensures you have industry-leading defenses as new attack techniques emerge.

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Model Attribution

The Runlayer ToolGuard suite utilizes GA Guard Lite for threat classification embeddings and model inputs. GA Guard Lite is licensed under Apache 2.0.

Platform Security

Monitor security events and violations

Security Best Practices

MCP security guidelines and recommendations

Audit Logs

View detailed activity and security logs

Access Policies

Configure MCP access control policies