# LLM Agents for Automated Web Vulnerability Reproduction: Are We There Yet?

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.14700 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.14700/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Agent threats, guardrails and governance, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 29 of its 74 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Agent threats, guardrails and governance](https://mlsanity.com/agents/agent-threats-guardrails-and-governance/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11366/) (2023)
- [Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04761/) (2023)
- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [LiveCodeBench: Holistic and Contamination Free Evaluation of Large Language Models for Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07974/) (2024)
- [AutoGen: Enabling Next-Gen LLM Applications via Multi-Agent Conversation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.08155/) (2023)
- [SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15793/) (2024)
- [Is Your Code Generated by ChatGPT Really Correct? Rigorous Evaluation of Large Language Models for Code Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.01210/) (2023)
- [HuggingGPT: Solving AI Tasks with ChatGPT and its Friends in Hugging Face](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17580/) (2023)
- [OpenHands: An Open Platform for AI Software Developers as Generalist Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.16741/) (2024)
- [BigCodeBench: Benchmarking Code Generation with Diverse Function Calls and Complex Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15877/) (2024)
- [Agentless: Demystifying LLM-based Software Engineering Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.01489/) (2024)
- [Self-collaboration Code Generation via ChatGPT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07590/) (2023)
- [LLM Agents can Autonomously Exploit One-day Vulnerabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.08144/) (2024)
- [LLM Agents can Autonomously Hack Websites](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.06664/) (2024)
- [IRIS: LLM-Assisted Static Analysis for Detecting Security Vulnerabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17238/) (2024)
- [PentestGPT: An LLM-empowered Automatic Penetration Testing Tool](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.06782/) (2023)
- [Teams of LLM Agents can Exploit Zero-Day Vulnerabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01637/) (2024)
- [NYU CTF Bench: A Scalable Open-Source Benchmark Dataset for Evaluating LLMs in Offensive Security](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.05590/) (2024)
- [SEC-bench: Automated Benchmarking of LLM Agents on Real-World Software Security Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.11791/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models are Few-Shot Summarizers: Multi-Intent Comment Generation via In-Context Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.11384/) (2023)
- [RepoAgent: An LLM-Powered Open-Source Framework for Repository-level Code Documentation Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16667/) (2024)
- [LLM4Vuln: A Unified Evaluation Framework for Decoupling and Enhancing LLMs' Vulnerability Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.16185/) (2024)
- [Large Language Model-Powered Smart Contract Vulnerability Detection: New Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01152/) (2023)
- [PentestAgent: Incorporating LLM Agents to Automated Penetration Testing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.05185/) (2024)
- [SecVulEval: Benchmarking LLMs for Real-World C/C++ Vulnerability Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19828/) (2025)
- [JsDeObsBench: Measuring and Benchmarking LLMs for JavaScript Deobfuscation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.20170/) (2025)
- [LLM-Assisted Model-Based Fuzzing of Protocol Implementations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.01750/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Execution-State-Aware LLM Reasoning for Automated Proof-of-Vulnerability Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.13574/) (2026)
- [Are Frontier LLMs Ready for Cybersecurity? Evidence for Vertical Foundation Models from Dual-Mode Vulnerability Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.23243/) (2026)
- [FORGE: Multi-Agent Graduated Exploitation and Detection Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.03453/) (2026)
- [The History Is the Detector: Executing CVE Patch History, End-to-End](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05335/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large language model (LLM) agents have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in software engineering and cybersecurity tasks, including code generation, vulnerability discovery, and automated testing. One critical but underexplored application is automated web vulnerability reproduction, which transforms vulnerability reports into working exploits. Although recent advances suggest promising potential, challenges remain in applying LLM agents to real-world web vulnerability reproduction scenarios. In this paper, we present the first comprehensive evaluation of state-of-the-art LLM agents for automated web vulnerability reproduction. We systematically assess 20 agents from software engineering, cybersecurity, and general domains across 16 dimensions, including technical capabilities, environment adaptability, and user experience factors, on 3 representative web vulnerabilities. Based on the results, we select three top-performing agents (OpenHands, SWE-agent, and CAI) for in-depth evaluation on our benchmark dataset of 80 real-world CVEs spanning 7 vulnerability types and 6 web technologies. Our results reveal that while LLM agents achieve reasonable success on simple library-based vulnerabilities, they consistently fail on complex service-based vulnerabilities requiring multi-component environments. Complex environment configurations and authentication barriers create a gap where agents can execute exploit code but fail to trigger actual vulnerabilities. We observe high sensitivity to input guidance, with performance degrading by over 33% under incomplete authentication information. Our findings highlight the significant gap between current LLM agent capabilities and the demands of reliable automated vulnerability reproduction, emphasizing the need for advances in environmental adaptation and autonomous problem-solving capabilities.