An apparatus includes a non-volatile memory (NVM) device coupled to a host, the NVM device including a processing device to: receive a communication packet from a server via the host computing system that is coupled to the NVM device and communicatively coupled to the server, the communication packet comprising clear text data that requests to initiate secure communications; perform a secure handshake with the server, via communication through the host computing system, using a secure protocol that generates a session key; receive data, via the host computing system, from the server within a secure protocol packet, wherein the data is inaccessible to the host computing system; authenticate the data using secure protocol metadata of the secure protocol packet; optionally decrypt, using the session key, the data to generate plaintext data; and store the plaintext data in NVM storage elements of the NVM device.