← Back to Library

Untargeted Jailbreak Attack

Authors: Xinzhe Huang, Wenjing Hu, Tianhang Zheng, Kedong Xiu, Xiaojun Jia, Di Wang, Zhan Qin, Kui Ren

Published: 2025-10-03

arXiv ID: 2510.02999v1

Added to Library: 2025-10-06 04:00 UTC

Red Teaming

📄 Abstract

Existing gradient-based jailbreak attacks on Large Language Models (LLMs), such as Greedy Coordinate Gradient (GCG) and COLD-Attack, typically optimize adversarial suffixes to align the LLM output with a predefined target response. However, by restricting the optimization objective as inducing a predefined target, these methods inherently constrain the adversarial search space, which limit their overall attack efficacy. Furthermore, existing methods typically require a large number of optimization iterations to fulfill the large gap between the fixed target and the original model response, resulting in low attack efficiency. To overcome the limitations of targeted jailbreak attacks, we propose the first gradient-based untargeted jailbreak attack (UJA), aiming to elicit an unsafe response without enforcing any predefined patterns. Specifically, we formulate an untargeted attack objective to maximize the unsafety probability of the LLM response, which can be quantified using a judge model. Since the objective is non-differentiable, we further decompose it into two differentiable sub-objectives for optimizing an optimal harmful response and the corresponding adversarial prompt, with a theoretical analysis to validate the decomposition. In contrast to targeted jailbreak attacks, UJA's unrestricted objective significantly expands the search space, enabling a more flexible and efficient exploration of LLM vulnerabilities.Extensive evaluations demonstrate that \textsc{UJA} can achieve over 80\% attack success rates against recent safety-aligned LLMs with only 100 optimization iterations, outperforming the state-of-the-art gradient-based attacks such as I-GCG and COLD-Attack by over 20\%.

🔍 Key Points

  • Introduction of the first gradient-based untargeted jailbreak attack (UJA), which elicits unsafe responses from large language models (LLMs) without predefined patterns.
  • Development of a novel two-stage optimization strategy that decomposes the non-differentiable attack objective into two differentiable sub-objectives, thus improving optimization efficiency and flexibility.
  • Empirical results demonstrate that UJA achieves over 80% attack success rates on safety-aligned LLMs in just 100 optimization iterations, significantly surpassing the performance of previous state-of-the-art methods like GCG and COLD-Attack.
  • UJA exhibits strong transferability across different LLMs, showing that the prompts optimized can effectively bypass defenses even when applied to advanced models.
  • Extensive evaluations prove that UJA maintains high effectiveness against several mitigation strategies, suggesting robustness in practical deployment scenarios.

💡 Why This Paper Matters

The Untargeted Jailbreak Attack (UJA) represents a significant advancement in the study of adversarial techniques against large language models, showcasing a novel approach to bypassing safety mechanisms. Its introduction not only highlights the vulnerabilities present in LLMs but also sets a benchmark for future research in adversarial attacks and defenses. The ability to achieve high success rates with limited iterations emphasizes UJA's potential utility in exploring and understanding the robustness of LLM systems.

🎯 Why It's Interesting for AI Security Researchers

This paper is crucial for AI security researchers as it directly addresses current vulnerabilities in highly advanced language models, which are increasingly integrated into sensitive applications. The findings underscore the need for robust security measures, as the methods developed could be employed by adversaries to exploit weaknesses in AI systems. Furthermore, the research contributes to the broader conversation on AI safety, prompting further examination of the implications of adversarial attacks in real-world AI deployments.

📚 Read the Full Paper