arXiv AI By Yichao Gao, Yumo Zhang, Yunhao Yao, Haohua Du, Puhan Luo, Ruiqi Li, Zhiqiang Wang

What Guides the Agent? Adjudicating Unauthorized Behavior via Localizing Behavior-Guiding Instructions

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The paper introduces Attnlocate, a runtime framework that localizes behavior‑guiding instructions within the attention matrix of large language model agents. By treating this localization as an object detection task, Attnlocate uses a multi‑head, multi‑layer attention aggregation scheme and a 1‑D U‑Net to identify spans that influence tool‑calling decisions. The system then adjudicates potential malicious invocations based on the authority of the source, achieving high detection metrics across diverse LLM families and demonstrating transferability to unseen models.

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arXiv AI
2d ago

Universal Defenses for Tool-Integrated LLM Agents Against Adversarial Attacks

The paper proposes universal, tool‑based defenses for large language model agents that use external tools, addressing four types of adversarial attacks: direct and indirect prompt injection, memory poisoning, and backdoor attacks. Two main defenses are introduced: Attacker Tool Filtering, which uses anomaly detection to remove suspicious tools, and Normal Tool Recalling, which restores the agent’s original toolset before planning. The authors also add prompt‑based defenses such as Chain‑of‑Thought prompting and self‑reflection, and demonstrate that these methods dramatically lower attack success rates—often to 0%—across multiple open‑source and proprietary LLMs while maintaining or improving task performance.

By Xiaoyan Li, Yunli Wang