[Enterprise Case Study] MAVIS Empowers a Global Thermal Solutions Leader: Zero-Trust Third-Party Vendor Access Management, Building a Supply Chain Security Defense That Meets NVIDIA, AMD & Apple Audit

Background

The company is a world-leading designer and manufacturer of thermal solutions and cooling modules. With the explosive growth of generative AI and data center demand in recent years, server liquid-cooling business has become the core driver of the company’s growth.

The company has successfully entered the supply chains of NVIDIA, AMD, and Apple — three of the world’s top chip and technology giants. As a key supplier in the global AI ecosystem, it must regularly undergo and pass extremely rigorous supply chain security audits and reviews conducted by NVIDIA, AMD, and Apple to safeguard intellectual property and ensure uninterrupted operations.

Industry Pain Points

The R&D, testing, production, and maintenance of server liquid-cooling systems rely heavily on remote maintenance by numerous external equipment vendors and system integrator (SI) engineers. Without a large dedicated IT team, the company faced the following challenges:

• No unified control over external connections: Maintenance channels were fragmented and difficult for the security team to govern centrally, creating risks of lateral movement within the internal network.

• Shared accounts and credential leakage: External engineers often shared high-privilege credentials for convenience, lacking individual identification and traceability, with passwords prone to leakage.

• High compliance and audit pressure: Difficulty meeting NVIDIA, AMD, and Apple’s supply chain security audit requirements for zero trust, multi-factor authentication (MFA), least privilege, and full session recording.

• Conflict between security and efficiency: Traditional strict control processes prolonged maintenance time, impacting R&D testing and production efficiency of liquid-cooling systems.

Solution

MAVIS delivered a tailor-made Privileged Access Management (PAM) system, helping the company build a zero-trust security architecture to securely govern all third-party vendor connections.

Core Capabilities

• Zero-trust architecture with multi-factor authentication (MFA): A unified access gateway for external engineers with mandatory MFA identity verification to prevent unauthorized access.

• Centralized credential management and password concealment: The platform vaults real credentials; engineers log in automatically with one click and never handle passwords, preventing credential leakage.

• Fine-grained least-privilege control: Access restricted to specific liquid-cooling test or maintenance equipment, with connection time windows enforced and file transfer and clipboard functions optionally disabled.

• Full session auditing and screen recording: Complete recording of SSH commands and RDP sessions, plus keystroke-to-text audit logs, ensuring every remote action is fully traceable.

Deployment

• Agentless deployment, rapid go-live: No agents required on vendor computers or managed servers, reducing deployment and maintenance costs.

• No code changes, seamless integration: No modification of existing systems or production equipment architecture, minimizing implementation risk.

• Minimal learning curve: An intuitive interface lets external engineers get up to speed effortlessly, reducing human error.

Results: Security and Business Growth in Tandem

After deploying MAVIS, the global thermal solutions leader achieved the following key results within a short period:

• Successfully passed the rigorous supply chain security audits of NVIDIA, AMD, and Apple, removing barriers to collaboration and securing a smooth order flow for the liquid-cooling business.

• Full visibility into external connections — every maintenance action leaves video and text audit trails, with audit retrieval taking only minutes.

• Strengthened intellectual property protection, preventing leakage of core designs and cooling parameters.

• Eliminated credential sharing and misuse, enforcing least privilege and individual accountability to minimize human security risks.

• Simplified privilege and credential management, enabling rapid response to personnel changes and reducing IT operations workload.

Conclusion

Facing the exacting security and compliance standards of the global AI supply chain, the thermal solutions leader turned the once-burdensome challenge of third-party vendor access security into a core competitive advantage through MAVIS. This proves that in cutting-edge hardware manufacturing fields such as liquid cooling, zero-trust privileged access management is the essential foundation for entering elite international supply chains and earning the trust of technology giants like NVIDIA, AMD, and Apple.