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To Protect the LLM Agent Against the Prompt Injection Attack with Polymorphic Prompt

Authors: Zhilong Wang, Neha Nagaraja, Lan Zhang, Hayretdin Bahsi, Pawan Patil, Peng Liu

Published: 2025-06-06

arXiv ID: 2506.05739v1

Added to Library: 2025-11-11 14:01 UTC

Red Teaming

๐Ÿ“„ Abstract

LLM agents are widely used as agents for customer support, content generation, and code assistance. However, they are vulnerable to prompt injection attacks, where adversarial inputs manipulate the model's behavior. Traditional defenses like input sanitization, guard models, and guardrails are either cumbersome or ineffective. In this paper, we propose a novel, lightweight defense mechanism called Polymorphic Prompt Assembling (PPA), which protects against prompt injection with near-zero overhead. The approach is based on the insight that prompt injection requires guessing and breaking the structure of the system prompt. By dynamically varying the structure of system prompts, PPA prevents attackers from predicting the prompt structure, thereby enhancing security without compromising performance. We conducted experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of PPA against existing attacks and compared it with other defense methods.

๐Ÿ” Key Points

  • Proposition of Polymorphic Prompt Assembling (PPA) as a lightweight defense mechanism against prompt injection attacks.
  • PPA works by dynamically varying the structure of system prompts, making it challenging for attackers to predict and manipulate the system prompt's behavior.
  • Demonstrated effectiveness of PPA through experiments, showing improved security with near-zero performance overhead compared to traditional methods.
  • Comparison of PPA with existing defense mechanisms highlights its innovative approach to enhancing LLM agent security.
  • The approach addresses the limitations of current methods such as input sanitization, guard models, and guardrails by providing a more flexible defense.

๐Ÿ’ก Why This Paper Matters

This paper introduces a significant advancement in the field of AI security by providing a novel and efficient method to protect LLM agents from prompt injection attacks. The proposed Polymorphic Prompt Assembling technique enhances security without compromising model performance, making it a crucial contribution for developers and organizations relying on LLMs for various applications.

๐ŸŽฏ Why It's Interesting for AI Security Researchers

This paper is of great interest to AI security researchers because it tackles a pressing vulnerability in widely-used AI systemsโ€”prompt injection attacks. By introducing a new and effective defense mechanism, PPA offers a promising solution that could inspire further research and development in safeguarding AI applications. Additionally, the minimal overhead of the proposed method makes it feasible for real-world implementation, addressing a significant challenge in AI security.

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