In plain words: Fake vulnerable services lure in AI-run attackers, then hidden instructions planted in the replies hijack the attacker's own AI, stopping it or even taking over the attacker's machine. In tests, this trick worked on over 95% of automated AI attacks.
Abstract · Hacking Back the AI-Hacker: Prompt Injection as a Defense Against LLM-driven Cyberattacks
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly being harnessed to automate cyberattacks, making sophisticated exploits more accessible and scalable. In response, we propose a new defense strategy tailored to counter LLM-driven cyberattacks. We introduce Mantis, a defensive framework that exploits LLMs' susceptibility to adversarial inputs to undermine malicious operations. Upon detecting an automated cyberattack, Mantis plants carefully crafted inputs into system responses, leading the attacker's LLM to disrupt their own operations (passive defense) or even compromise the attacker's machine (active defense). By deploying purposefully vulnerable decoy services to attract the attacker and using dynamic prompt injections for the attacker's LLM, Mantis can autonomously hack back the attacker. In our experiments, Mantis consistently achieved over 95% effectiveness against automated LLM-driven attacks. To foster further research and collaboration, Mantis is available as an open-source tool: https://github.com/pasquini-dario/project_mantis
Dario Pasquini, Evgenios M. Kornaropoulos, Giuseppe Ateniese
arXiv:2410.20911 · cs.CR, cs.AI · submitted Oct 28, 2024 · updated Nov 18, 2024
abstract · pdf · html · v0.2 (evaluated on more agents)