Fooling AI Agents: Web-Based Indirect Prompt Injection Observed in the Wild


Large language models (LLMs) and AI agents are becoming deeply integrated into web browsers, search engines and automated content-processing pipelines. While these integrations can expand functionality, they also introduce a new and largely underexplored attack surface.

One particularly concerning class of threats is indirect prompt injection (IDPI), in which adversaries embed hidden or manipulated instructions within website content that is later ingested by an LLM. This article shares in-the-wild observations from our telemetry, including our first observed case of AI-based ad review evasion.

Read more…
Source: Palo Alto Unit 42


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Triton Malware Targets Industrial Control Systems in Middle East

    December 15, 2017

    Researchers found malware called Triton on the industrial control systems of a company located in the Middle East. Attackers planted Triton, also called Trisis, with the intent of carrying out a “high-impact attack” against an unnamed company with the goal of causing physical damage, researchers said. FireEye’s Mandiant threat research team revealed the existence of the malware ...

  • 19-Year-Old TLS Vulnerability Weakens Modern Website Crypto

    December 13, 2017

    A vulnerability called ROBOT, first identified in 1998, has resurfaced. Impacted are leading websites ranging from Facebook to Paypal, which are vulnerable to attackers that could decrypt encrypted data and sign communications using the sites’ own private encryption key. The vulnerability is found in the transport layer security protocol used for Web encryption. A successful attack could ...

  • Why bother cracking PCs? Spot o’ malware on PLCs… Done. Industrial control network pwned

    December 12, 2017

    Security researchers have demonstrated a new technique for hacking air-gapped industrial control system networks, and hope their work will encourage the development of more robust defences for SCADA-based systems. Air-gapped industrial networks are thought to be difficult if not impossible to hack partly because they are isolated from the internet and corporate IT networks. However, in ...

  • Process Doppelgänging: New Malware Evasion Technique Works On All Windows Versions

    December 7, 2017

    A team of security researchers has discovered a new malware evasion technique that could help malware authors defeat most of the modern antivirus solutions and forensic tools. Dubbed Process Doppelgänging, the new fileless code injection technique takes advantage of a built-in Windows function and an undocumented implementation of Windows process loader. Ensilo security researchers Tal Liberman and Eugene Kogan, who ...

  • Hackers are scanning computers worldwide for open Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets…

    November 27, 2017

    Security researcher Didier Stevens setup a trap, or in digital security terms – a “honeypot”.  Think of it as digital sting operation, where someone puts a server online open to attack – but nothing of value is really there, it’s only there to record the attacks as they happen. The logs of these honeypots revealed hackers ...

  • New Mirai Variant Found Spreading like Wildfire

    November 23, 2017

    A security researcher reportedly discovered a new variant of Mirai (identified by Trend Micro as ELF_MIRAI family) that is quickly spreading. A notable increase in traffic on port 2323 and 23 was observed over the weekend, with around 100 thousand unique scanner IPs coming from Argentina. The release of the Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code in a public vulnerabilities database was ...