Indirect Prompt Injection
Attackers now embed malicious instructions inside "passive" data—PDFs, emails, or Slack messages—which are later ingested by autonomous agents, leading to data exfiltration without direct user interaction.
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Enterprise Defense in the Era of Autonomous Systems
By 2026, the primary threat vector has shifted from traditional exploits to Prompt Injection and Excessive Agency. As large language models are granted direct access to enterprise tools via protocols like MCP (Model Context Protocol), securing the "reasoning layer" is now as critical as securing the network layer.
Attackers now embed malicious instructions inside "passive" data—PDFs, emails, or Slack messages—which are later ingested by autonomous agents, leading to data exfiltration without direct user interaction.
The 2026 OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications highlights ASI01: Agent Goal Hijack and ASI08: Unbounded Tool Usage as the most critical vulnerabilities facing modern AI-integrated workflows.
Instruction Isolation: Hard-coded boundaries between system directives and retrieved data.
Just-in-Time (JIT) Agency: Permissions granted to agents only during specific task execution windows.
Human-in-the-Loop (HITL): Mandatory manual validation for high-stakes tool invocations (e.g., database writes).