Simon Willison's Lethal Trifecta Talk at the Bay Area AI Security Meetup
15 days ago
- #Prompt Injection
- #Lethal Trifecta
- #AI Security
- Talk on prompt injection and the lethal trifecta at the Bay Area AI Security Meetup.
- Prompt injection explained as a security vulnerability similar to SQL injection, caused by string concatenation in AI systems.
- Example of a translation app vulnerability where user input can override system instructions.
- Risks of prompt injection in sensitive systems, like digital assistants handling emails.
- Markdown exfiltration attack described, where private data is leaked via image rendering.
- List of systems affected by prompt injection attacks, including ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Microsoft Copilot.
- Discussion on the challenges of coining new terms in tech, with examples like 'prompt injection' and 'lethal trifecta'.
- The lethal trifecta defined as a combination of private data access, untrusted content, and external communication in AI systems.
- Common ineffective protections against prompt injection, such as 'prompt begging' and AI-based detection layers.
- Importance of removing at least one leg of the lethal trifecta to prevent attacks.
- Critique of MCP (Model Context Protocol) for outsourcing security decisions to users.
- References to papers and articles on securing LLM agents and the lethal trifecta.