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Retrieved content as data

Text the actor reads is never treated as instruction.

Inputs layerMissing or failed in 5 cases (0 ended in harm)Worked in 0Software agents: 4Software acting on machines: 1

Where it was missing or failed

The third column is what this control would have looked like in that case: the concrete form, not the abstract name.

CaseWorldWhat it would have looked like hereStatusOutcome
GitHub MCP leak 2025Software agentsRetrieved issue text treated as instructionabsentCaught first by researchers
EchoLeak 2025Software agentsInjection classifier; Treating retrieved content as data rather than instruction (absent)failedCaught first by researchers
Gemini calendar invite 2025Software acting on machinesInput isolation between retrieved content and instructionsfailedCaught first by researchers
Claude Code [bot] trust 2026Software agentsIssue text resembling an error message treated as instructionabsentCaught first by researchers
Perplexity Comet 2025Software agentsContent-instruction separationfailedCaught first by researchers

Rules and standards that map to it

Strength says whether the rule's text requires this control, implies it, or only recommends it. Draft mappings are the Register's reading, not yet checked by a person, and none is legal advice.

RuleStrengthWhere, and whyJurisdiction
EU Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), high-risk obligations (draft mapping)ImpliedArticle 15: resilience against attempts to alter use or performance through manipulated inputsEuropean Union
OWASP Top 10 for Large Language Model Applications (draft mapping)RecommendedLLM01 prompt injection: treat retrieved and user content as dataGuidance, no jurisdiction
NIST AI 600-1: Generative AI Profile of the AI Risk Management Framework (draft mapping)Recommendedinformation security risks: direct and indirect prompt injection through content the system readsUnited States (voluntary)

Recent signals touching this control

DateSignalKind
2026-10-30CVE-2026-61789: DBHub, a database Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, lets SQL that hides a write behind a double dash pass its read-only check on MySQL and MariaDB
The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) record says that before 0.22.6, DBHub's read-only validation can be bypassed on its MySQL and MariaDB connectors, so anyone able to influence the assistant's SQL, including through prompt injection in content the assistant reads, can modify or drop database data, subject to the database account's privileges; fixed in 0.22.6. Source ↗
vulnerability
2026-10-29CVE-2026-119050: Agno PandasTools lets prompt injection make the agent call arbitrary pandas functions, including reading pickle files for code execution
The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) record says Agno through 3.1.11 has an unsafe reflection vulnerability in PandasTools that passes model-controlled function names to getattr(), so attackers can use prompt injection to make the agent call pandas.read_pickle on attacker-controlled paths for code execution, or call other readers to read local files. Source ↗
vulnerability
2026-10-21CVE-2026-114106: HKUDS Vibe-Trading file-read tools
The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) record says HKUDS Vibe-Trading from 0.1.0 before 0.1.7 lets attackers prompt the agent to read server files, including /etc/shadow, API keys in /proc/self/environ and /root credentials, through read_document, which lacks sandbox checks, or tools gated by safe_user_path. Source ↗
vulnerability
2026-10-20CVE-2026-109444: OpenSRE
The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) record says instructions injected into alerts or Slack messages triaged by the OpenSRE agent (through 0.1.2026.10.19) can make it run shell commands without confirmation, because the approval check in headless mode always allows execution. Source ↗
vulnerability
2026-10-20CVE-2026-109440: LangAlpha
The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) record says instructions planted in web content retrieved by the LangAlpha agent (through 2026.09.07) can make it run shell commands or Python and exfiltrate vault secrets, because its Bash and ExecuteCode tools lack an allow-list and human approval. Source ↗
vulnerability
2026-10-20CVE-2026-77926: Aix-DB 1.2.4
The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) record says authenticated non-admin users of Aix-DB 1.2.4 can make the ChatBI common agent run operating system commands through its ungated deepagents execute tool, including through malicious text in uploaded documents. Source ↗
vulnerability
2026-10-19CVE-2026-112308: crewai-tools
The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) record says crewai-tools through 1.15.28 lets prompt-injected agent tool input direct SeleniumScrapingTool to loopback, private or cloud metadata addresses, disclosing internal data and cloud credentials, because the tool skips its private-address check. Source ↗
vulnerability
2026-10-13CVE-2026-110202 to 110206: Roo Code
Five National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records say that in Roo Code through 3.54.0 crafted shell commands delivered by indirect prompt injection can pass the auto-approval command allowlist and run without user approval (one record only on bash 5.3+ or ksh93); no fixed version is named. Source ↗
vulnerability

All signals for this control.

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