Targeting the Core: A Simple and Effective Method to Attack RAG-based Agents via Direct LLM Manipulation

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2412.04415v1
• Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2024 18:38:30 GMT
• Title: Targeting the Core: A Simple and Effective Method to Attack RAG-based Agents via Direct LLM Manipulation
• Authors: Xuying Li, Zhuo Li, Yuji Kosuga, Yasuhiro Yoshida, Victor Bian,
• Abstract summary: AI agents, powered by large language models (LLMs), have transformed human-computer interactions by enabling seamless, natural, and context-aware communication.<n>This paper investigates a critical vulnerability: adversarial attacks targeting the LLM core within AI agents.
• Score: 4.241100280846233
• License: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
• Abstract: AI agents, powered by large language models (LLMs), have transformed human-computer interactions by enabling seamless, natural, and context-aware communication. While these advancements offer immense utility, they also inherit and amplify inherent safety risks such as bias, fairness, hallucinations, privacy breaches, and a lack of transparency. This paper investigates a critical vulnerability: adversarial attacks targeting the LLM core within AI agents. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that a deceptively simple adversarial prefix, such as \textit{Ignore the document}, can compel LLMs to produce dangerous or unintended outputs by bypassing their contextual safeguards. Through experimentation, we demonstrate a high attack success rate (ASR), revealing the fragility of existing LLM defenses. These findings emphasize the urgent need for robust, multi-layered security measures tailored to mitigate vulnerabilities at the LLM level and within broader agent-based architectures.

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