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Understanding Excessive Agency in LLMs

Ian Webster
Engineer & OWASP Gen AI Red Teaming Contributor

Excessive agency in LLMs is a broad security risk where AI systems can do more than they should. This happens when they're given too much access or power. There are three main types:

  1. Too many features: LLMs can use tools they don't need
  2. Too much access: AI gets unnecessary permissions to backend systems
  3. Too much freedom: LLMs make decisions without human checks

This is different from insecure output handling. It's about what the LLM can do, not just what it says.

Example: A customer service chatbot that can read customer info is fine. But if it can also change or delete records, that's excessive agency.

The OWASP Top 10 for LLM Apps lists this as a major concern. To fix it, developers need to carefully limit what their AI can do.