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Coding agents are increasingly used for software engineering tasks, including bootstrapping projects from third-party repositories whose integrity cannot be assumed. Prior work on repository poisoning...
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.
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.
arXiv:2603.18740v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Automated Code Review (ACR) systems integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly adopted in software development workflows, rang...
arXiv:2603. 16572v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Agent skills extend local AI agents, such as Claude Code and OpenClaw, with additional functionality.
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.