Attack Surface

Application layer Research

Security research involving application interfaces and API implementations

127 matching entries out of 273 in this category

Application layer research results

127 entries

Visual prompt injection crosses document trust boundaries

Published Sep 3, 2026Analyzed Sep 9, 2026Source: arXiv

Untrusted document images can redirect vision-language agents across instruction and tool-authorization boundaries. Repeat-After-Me evaluates six victim models on constructed document tasks.

Repeat-After-Me: Black-Box Adaptive Visual Prompt Injection

Evaluated models: claude-opus-4-7, GPT-5.5, Gemini 3.1 Pro+3 more

claude-opus-4-7
GPT-5.5
Gemini 3.1 Pro
Qwen3.6-27B
Qwen3-VL 32B Instruct
InternVL3.5 38B Instruct

Context privilege escalation in AI agent harnesses

Published Sep 1, 2026Analyzed Sep 9, 2026Source: arXiv

Context assembly can promote repository, tool or skill content into higher-priority instructions or persistent state. The paper studies 12 pinned agent-harness versions.

What's in Your Agent's Context? Context Privilege Escalation Attacks against AI Agent Harness

Evaluated models: GPT-5.5, GPT-5.4-mini, Claude Sonnet 4.6+4 more

GPT-5.5
GPT-5.4-mini
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Opus 4.6
Gemini 2.5 Flash
Gemini 2.5 Pro
DeepSeek V4 Flash

Single-interaction poisoning of agent memory

Published Aug 24, 2026Analyzed Sep 9, 2026Source: arXiv

A stored interaction can later steer a memory-augmented agent's answer without direct memory-store access. The study evaluates persistent response manipulation in MemoryOS and MemGPT.

InjecMEM: Memory Injection Attack on LLM Agent Memory Systems

Evaluated models: Qwen 2.5 7B Instruct, Qwen 2.5 1.5B Instruct, Qwen 2.5 3B Instruct+3 more

Qwen 2.5 7B Instruct
Qwen 2.5 1.5B Instruct
Qwen 2.5 3B Instruct
Qwen 2.5 14B Instruct
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3

Poisoned agent skills amplify coding-agent token use

Published Aug 22, 2026Analyzed Sep 9, 2026Source: arXiv

Third-party skills can inflate coding-agent resource use while an otherwise legitimate task remains functional.

SkillBloat: Token Amplification Attacks via Skill Injection in LLM Coding Agents

Evaluated models: GLM-4.7-Flash, GLM-5, GPT-5.4-mini+1 more

GLM-4.7-Flash
GLM-5
GPT-5.4-mini
GPT-5.5

Tool-response state corruption through unauthorized source claims

Published Aug 13, 2026Analyzed Sep 9, 2026Source: arXiv

Lower-trust tool content can assert facts beyond its authority and distort an agent's decisions. PIPES screens response units against source provenance and expected field meaning.

PIPES: Securing Agent Perception with Provenance and Priors

Evaluated models: Gemma 4 31B IT, GPT-5.6 Luna

Trajectory Poisoning in Self-Evolving Agent Skills

Published Aug 6, 2026Analyzed Aug 13, 2026Source: arXiv

Self-evolving agent-skill systems may promote recurring, attacker-controlled execution records into persistent reusable instructions. The paper evaluates whether poisoned but task-plausible trajectories survive aggregation and appear in generated skill artifacts, using inert canary behaviors and two structurally different skill-evolution pipelines.

When Experience Becomes Instruction: Trajectory Poisoning in Self-Evolving Agent Skill Systems

Evaluated models: GPT-5.4, MiniMax M2.5, DeepSeek V3.2+3 more

GPT-5.4
MiniMax M2.5
DeepSeek V3.2
DeepSeek V4-Pro
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
Qwen3.5-122B-A10B

Dynamic Security Testing for Third-Party Agent Skills

Published Aug 4, 2026Analyzed Aug 13, 2026Source: arXiv

SkillSentry evaluates third-party agent skills by constructing source-grounded decoy environments and comparing matched executions with and without the tested skill. The method requires completed, observable, skill-attributed side effects rather than treating suspicious text, ordinary privileged operations, or unexecuted paths as proven malicious behavior.

SkillSentry: Adaptive Honey Worlds for Dynamic Safety Testing of Agent Skills

Evaluated models: DeepSeek V4-Pro

Persistent Agent Memory Poisoning and Incomplete Repair

Published Jul 29, 2026Analyzed Aug 13, 2026Source: arXiv

MemSecBench follows malicious agent-memory content from initial write through persistence, retrieval, action selection, execution, and attempted selective repair. Its controlled Write–Execute–Forget protocol evaluates 310 human-reviewed cases across two harnesses, four memory backends, three model backends, and seven evidence-gated lifecycle checkpoints.

MemSecBench: Tracking Agent Memory Poisoning from Persistence to Consequence and Repair

Evaluated models: GPT-5.5, DeepSeek V4-Pro, MiniMax-M3

Workspace Agent Runtime Safety Failures Across Risk Carriers

Published Jul 29, 2026Analyzed Aug 13, 2026Source: arXiv

AgentS4D measures unsafe actions and state changes across complete workspace-agent executions rather than treating task completion or isolated model responses as safety evidence. Its 328 sandboxed cases introduce risky content through user requests, documents, web resources, tools, third-party skills, and persistent memory, then compare the same cases across four agent harnesses and five model backends.

AgentS4D: Benchmarking Runtime Risks across the Execution Lifecycle of LLM-Based Workspace Agents

Evaluated models: GPT-5.5, Gemini 3.1 Pro, DeepSeek V4-Pro+2 more

GPT-5.5
Gemini 3.1 Pro
DeepSeek V4-Pro
MiniMax-M3
Qwen3.7-Plus

Incomplete MCP Tool-Call Attack Detection

Published Jul 28, 2026Analyzed Aug 13, 2026Source: arXiv

The MTGuard study evaluates unsafe Model Context Protocol tool calls originating from compromised server data, host-side execution changes, and malicious user-controlled resources. Its hybrid monitor combines pre-execution parameter inspection, behavioral observation, and post-execution result verification across browser-automation and financial-analysis agents.

Hybrid Analysis for Secure MCP Tool Use in LLM Agents

Evaluated models: GPT-5.6 Luna, DeepSeek V4 Flash, DeepSeek V4-Pro

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