arXiv:2607.17986cs.CRcs.AI2026-07

自托管AI代理的自我状态被攻破,操作系统防御能力有限。

Self-State Attacks on Self-Hosted AI Agents: How Far Can OS Defenses Go?

  • 通过系统调用伪造自身状态实现攻击,突破传统安全边界。
  • 23个攻击组合中仅部分可被检测,剩余攻击在系统层无法区分。
  • 建议分层防御:权限控制+工作负载感知检测+定期备份。

自托管AI代理依赖读写自身内存与配置文件运行。其状态被篡改可能导致被攻破——攻击通过合法系统调用实现,我们称之为自状态攻击。本文构建四维攻击空间(目标、机制、粒度、时间),分析预防、检测与恢复的结构性限制,并提出基于工作负载的可检测性视角。通过采集典型自托管代理在多种工作负载下的真实活动轨迹,构建23个攻击单元,涵盖43种对真实状态文件的操作并注入追踪数据。评估经典与工作负载条件下的防御策略后发现:分层防御(指令与配置层访问控制、内存层工作负载感知检测、周期性备份)可覆盖多数攻击单元,但仍有小部分攻击在操作系统层面结构上不可区分。这表明需重新审视操作系统级防御,或开启新研究方向。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Self-hosted AI agents read and write their own memory and configuration files to function. An agent may get compromised via corruption of its own state -- a compromise realized via legitimate OS system call invocation. We refer to this class of threats as self-state attacks. In this paper, we investigate the OS resilience to this class of attacks. Formally, we characterize a four-axis attack space (Target, Mechanism, Granularity, Temporal); investigate the structural limits of prevention, detection, and recovery; and introduce a workload-conditioned view of detectability. To instantiate the framework, we collect live activity traces from a representative self-hosted agent running across distinct workload profiles, and realize the attack space as a 23-cell matrix, 43 concrete operations on real self-state files, and injected into those traces. We then evaluate both canonical and workload-conditioned defense strategies. The empirical results show that a layered defense stack (access-control prevention on the instruction and configuration layers, workload-conditioned detection on the memory layer, and periodic backup for recovery) is effective on most attack cells while a small residual attack surface remains structurally indistinguishable at the OS level. These findings suggest that against the newly established class of self-state attacks, OS-level defense needs to be reconsidered, potentially opening new research directions in the field.

AI安全系统防御自托管攻击面

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