Thread - AI Security Technique

Researchers at HiddenLayer demonstrated how a webpage can embed an indirect prompt injection that causes OpenClaw to silently execute a malicious script. Once executed, the script plants persistent malicious instructions into future system prompts, allowing the attacker to issue new commands, turning OpenClaw into a command and control agent.

What makes this attack unique is that, through a simple indirect prompt injection attack into an agentic lifecycle, untrusted content can be used to spoof the model’s control scheme and induce unapproved tool invocation for execution. Through this single inject, an LLM can become a persistent, automated command & control implant.

Researchers at Lumia have demonstrated that it is possible to extract authentication tokens from the memory of LLM Desktop Applications. An attacker could then use those tokens to impersonate as the victim to the LLM backed, thereby gaining access to the victim’s conversations as well as the ability to interfere in future conversations. The attacker’s access would allow them the ability to directly inject prompts to change the LLM’s behavior, poison the LLM’s context to have persistent effects, manipulate the user’s conversation history to cover their tracks, and ultimately impact the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the system. The researchers demonstrated this on Anthropic Claude, Microsoft M365 Copilot, and OpenAI ChatGPT.

Vendor Responses to Responsible Disclosure:

• Anthropic (HackerOne) - Closed as informational since local attack.
• Microsoft Security Response Center - Attack doesn’t bypass security boundaries for CVE.
• OpenAI (BugCrowd) - Closed as informational and noted that it’s up to Microsoft to patch this behavior.