Application layer Vulnerabilities

Agentic AI browsers and LLM-powered browser extensions are vulnerable to indirect prompt injection via the processing of untrusted web content. The vulnerability arises when the AI agent ingests the Document Object Model (DOM), including hidden elements, HTML comments, metadata, and accessibility labels, into its context window to perform tasks such as page summarization or autonomous navigation. Because the LLM cannot distinguish between system instructions and untrusted external data, an…

AI control protocols utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) as "trusted monitors" to oversee stronger "untrusted" models are vulnerable to adaptive prompt injection attacks. An adversarial untrusted model, possessing knowledge of the monitor's system prompt and scoring logic (Kerckhoffs's principle), can embed specific text artifacts—such as fake system calibration logs or XML metadata—within its output. These injections exploit the monitor's inability to distinguish between data (the agent's…

Multimodal agents built on Large Vision-Language Models (LVLMs) are vulnerable to adaptive typographic prompt injection attacks (AgentTypo). This vulnerability allows an attacker to execute indirect prompt injection by embedding adversarial text prompts directly into images (e.g., webpage screenshots, product photos) processed by the agent. Unlike standard visual adversarial attacks that rely on noise perturbation, this method utilizes the AgentTypo framework to perform black-box Bayesian…

Deep Research (DR) agents, specifically those utilizing the "think-search-draft" architecture such as the WebThinker framework, contain a logic vulnerability in their recursive planning and information retrieval workflows. While the underlying Large Language Model (LLM) may possess alignment safeguards to reject harmful queries, the agentic framework creates a bypass vector. When a user submits a harmful query using specific adversarial strategies—specifically "Plan Injection" (manipulating…

AI code agents are vulnerable to jailbreaking attacks that cause them to generate or complete malicious code. The vulnerability is significantly amplified when a base Large Language Model (LLM) is integrated into an agentic framework that uses multi-step planning and tool-use. Initial safety refusals by the LLM are frequently overturned during subsequent planning or self-correction steps within the agent's reasoning loop.

A vulnerability termed "Controlled-Release Prompting" allows attackers to bypass lightweight input filters (prompt guards) deployed in front of Large Language Models (LLMs). The attack exploits the computational resource asymmetry between the resource-constrained guard model and the highly capable target model. Attackers encode malicious instructions using obfuscation techniques—such as substitution ciphers (Timed-Release) or verbose character descriptions (Spaced-Release)—that require…

A distributed backdoor vulnerability, named "Collaborative Shadows", exists in LLM-based Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) that rely on external or modifiable tools. An attacker can poison multiple agent tools by embedding inert, encrypted "attack primitives" within them. These primitives are fragments of a larger malicious payload. A carefully crafted user instruction acts as both a trigger and a decryption key. The instruction steers the agents to collaborate in a specific sequence, causing them to…

LLM-based coding agents integrated into IDEs (e.g., VS Code Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf) are vulnerable to a query-agnostic Indirect Prompt Injection (IPI) attack termed "QueryIPI." This vulnerability allows an attacker to achieve Remote Code Execution (RCE) on the developer's machine by injecting a malicious tool definition (e.g., via the Model Context Protocol) into the agent's context.

Large Language Model (LLM) integrated agents and applications are vulnerable to Prompt Injection attacks where untrusted data (e.g., retrieved documents, tool outputs, website content) overrides system instructions. Because LLMs typically process instructions and data within a single context window without strict separation, an attacker can embed imperative commands within the data channel. This vulnerability extends beyond simple overriding instructions; it includes sophisticated techniques…

Mobile LLM-based agents (including Mobile-Agent-E, AppAgent, AutoDroid, and others) are vulnerable to indirect prompt injection attacks delivered via untrusted third-party mobile channels, such as in-app advertisements, system notifications, and embedded webviews. These agents utilize Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) to perceive the device state via screenshots or accessibility trees. The vulnerability exists because the agents concatenate the user's prompt ($p$) with the environmental…