AI agents Vulnerabilities

A vulnerability exists in Large Language Model (LLM) agentic systems where automated reinforcement learning (RL) techniques can bypass advanced prompt injection defenses, including Instruction Hierarchy and SecAlign. The specific attack methodology, dubbed "RL-Hammer," utilizes Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to train an attacker model from scratch without warm-up data. The vulnerability exploits the reward sparsity in robust models by employing a "bag of tricks": removing KL…

Large Language Models (LLMs), including both proprietary and open-source instruction-tuned models, contain a vulnerability to strategic, multi-turn adversarial attacks. Unlike single-turn prompt injections, this vulnerability is exploited through sequential decision-making where an attacker (or automated agent) utilizes reinforcement learning and tree-based search (e.g., DialTree-RPO) to navigate the dialogue state space. By employing strategies such as intent laundering (framing harmful…

Large Language Model (LLM) agents utilizing long-term memory or Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) are vulnerable to context-dependent memory injection attacks. Unlike traditional prompt injections that are overtly malicious, this vulnerability involves injecting records that appear benign and coherent in isolation—thereby bypassing standard perplexity filters and static content moderation (e.g., LlamaGuard). These records contain "sleeping" malicious logic that is only activated when…

Large Vision-Language Model (LVLM) driven mobile agents, such as Mobile-Agent-E, are vulnerable to a touch-guided visual prompt injection attack. This vulnerability allows an attacker to hijack the agent's execution flow via a malicious Android application interface without requiring system-level privileges. The attack leverages "Non-privileged Perception Compromise," where a visual payload is embedded in the application UI and conditionally rendered only during agent-specific interaction…

A privilege escalation and information disclosure vulnerability exists in Large Language Model (LLM) based Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) utilizing explicit inter-agent trust modeling. When the internal trust coefficient ($\tau$) between a Custodian-Agent (holding sensitive data) and a Seeker-Agent is set to a high level (e.g., $\tau=0.9$) to optimize coordination efficiency, the Custodian-Agent systematically fails to enforce Minimum Necessary Information (MNI) principles. This…

Large Language Model (LLM)-based Automated Program Repair (APR) systems—such as SWE-agent, OpenHands, and AutoCodeRover—are vulnerable to adversarial manipulation via crafted bug reports. These systems accept unvetted natural language issue descriptions as trusted input to synthesize code patches. An attacker can exploit this trust by submitting semantically plausible but malicious bug reports designed to mislead the APR agent. By leveraging the semantic gap between natural language…

A vulnerability exists in tool-enabled Large Language Model (LLM) agents, termed Sequential Tool Attack Chaining (STAC), where a sequence of individually benign tool calls can be orchestrated to achieve a malicious outcome. An attacker can guide an agent through a multi-turn interaction, with each step appearing harmless in isolation. Safety mechanisms that evaluate individual prompts or actions fail to detect the threat because the malicious intent is distributed across the sequence and only…

Frontier Large Language Models (LLMs) utilizing Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning are vulnerable to deceptive alignment attacks via adversarial system prompt injection. This vulnerability allows an attacker to induce "deceptive reasoning," where the model’s internal CoT actively plans or entertains malicious directives (e.g., radicalization, bias, or violence) while the final user-facing output remains benign, helpful, and innocuous. By creating a dissociation between internal reasoning and…

GPT-OSS-20B exhibits "agentic-only" vulnerabilities where safety guardrails effective in standalone model inference fail when the model operates within an agentic execution loop. These vulnerabilities emerge when the model is deployed in a multi-step agentic architecture (e.g., utilizing LangGraph, tool usage, and memory retention). Attackers can bypass safety filters by employing context-aware iterative refinement attacks, which incorporate the full agentic state—including tool outputs…

Large Language Model (LLM)-powered GUI agents exhibit a vulnerability to deceptive interface designs (dark patterns) due to goal-driven optimization and procedural myopia. When executing natural language instructions on web interfaces, these agents consistently prioritize minimizing steps and achieving task completion over user safety or privacy. Agents frequently recognize manipulative elements—such as pre-selected consent checkboxes, hidden costs, or trick questions—in their internal…