arXiv Computation and Language

Beyond the Payload: How User Invocation Shapes Coding Agent Vulnerability to Repository Poisoning

arXiv AI
2d ago

NameTrap: Steering AI Coding Agents Toward Security Vulnerabilities via Variable Names

The paper introduces NameTrap, a source‑code poisoning attack that renames identifiers in third‑party Python files to steer AI coding agents toward specific Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) vulnerabilities. By iteratively aligning variable names with CWE‑specific conventions, the attack achieves success rates ranging from 22.5% to 75.0% across six agents and four vulnerability categories, outperforming random and neutral renaming strategies. The poisoned files contain no explicit instructions or vulnerable statements, and existing AI‑based and static security analyzers fail to detect the induced weaknesses.

By Chieh-Yuan Chang, Guan-Wei Chen, Chia-Yi Hsu, Chih Yang, Chia-Mu Yu, Chun-Ying Huang
arXiv AI
Aug 18

Workspace Topology as an Attack Vector in Agentic Coding Assistants

arXiv:2608. 14876v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Agentic coding assistants are finding widespread use, not just in new code development but in quickly ingesting and leveraging third-party code.

By Alexandre G. R. Day, Pradeep Yadlapalli, Sriram Venkatapathy, Thomas Paniagua, Nick Raines, Sahil Wadhwa, Himanshu Kumar, Andy Luo, Sudeep Panyam, Rikhiya Ghosh, Pranab Mohanty, Giri Iyengar
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 7

Harmless Yet Harmful: Neutral Prompting Attacks for Stealthy Hallucination Steering in Agent Skills

The paper introduces the Neutral Prompting Attack (NPA), a stealthy method that uses semantically benign instructions to increase the likelihood of large language models hallucinating non‑existent package names in coding agents. Unlike traditional dependency steering, NPA does not target a specific package but shifts the model’s output toward more speculative names. Experiments across multiple LLMs show that NPA raises hallucination rates, affects pip install success, alters the distribution of hallucinated packages, and bypasses existing static‑analysis, LLM‑based, and agent‑based defenses.

By Chia-Yi Hsu, Chia-Mu Yu, Chun-Ying Huang, Jun Sakuma
arXiv AI
Jun 12

Who Pays the Price? Stakeholder-Centric Prompt Injection Benchmarking for Real-world Web Agents

arXiv:2606. 13385v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Web agents driven by large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in real-world environments, where they operate over untrusted web content and execute actions with direct consequences.

By Zihao Wang, Yiming Li, Yutong Wu, Zheyu Liu, Kangjie Chen, Fok Kar Wai, Pin-Yu Chen, Vrizlynn L. L. Thing, Bo Li, Dacheng Tao, Tianwei Zhang
arXiv AI
Oct 7

Towards a Unified Misuse Monitoring Benchmark

The paper introduces a unified framework for monitoring misuse of large language model agents in multi‑actor settings, focusing on two attack types: decomposition attacks and prompt injection attacks. It proposes tracking the agent’s externalised actions and determining whether the first detection of harm falls within a defined harm window. Using this formalism, the authors build a benchmark of about 6,200 conversation transcripts and evaluate 17 monitor configurations, finding that action‑framed monitors perform well on both threats while content‑framed monitors struggle with injection attacks, and highlighting limitations of traditional position‑blind metrics.

By Aniruddh Pramod, James Oldfield, Adel Bibi
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 3

CodePoisonRAG: Knowledge Poisoning Attacks on Retrieval-Augmented Code Generation

The paper introduces CodePoisonRAG, a framework that poisons retrieval-augmented code generation systems by transforming benign code artifacts into malicious ones. It injects CWE-specific vulnerabilities and false safety claims into a single task-matched artifact, achieving high success rates across multiple generators and even against a defense system. The study demonstrates that attackers can target and propagate specific weaknesses without altering the underlying language model.

By Varun Gadey, Ziad Marey, Alexandra Dmitrienko