# PLAGUE: Plug-and-play framework for Lifelong Adaptive Generation of Multi-turn Exploits

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.17947 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.17947/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Jailbreaking, one of 12 directions in LLM safety and security.
- Builds on 32 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM safety and security / [Jailbreaking](https://mlsanity.com/safety/jailbreaking/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 32)

- [Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11366/) (2023)
- [Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16291/) (2023)
- [Jailbroken: How Does LLM Safety Training Fail?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02483/) (2023)
- [From Local to Global: A Graph RAG Approach to Query-Focused Summarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16130/) (2024)
- [HarmBench: A Standardized Evaluation Framework for Automated Red Teaming and Robust Refusal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.04249/) (2024)
- [Fine-tuning Aligned Language Models Compromises Safety, Even When Users Do Not Intend To!](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03693/) (2023)
- [ExpeL: LLM Agents Are Experiential Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10144/) (2023)
- [DSPy: Compiling Declarative Language Model Calls into Self-Improving Pipelines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03714/) (2023)
- [Mem0: Building Production-Ready AI Agents with Scalable Long-Term Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.19413/) (2025)
- [Great, Now Write an Article About That: The Crescendo Multi-Turn LLM Jailbreak Attack](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01833/) (2024)
- [A StrongREJECT for Empty Jailbreaks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10260/) (2024)
- [Are aligned neural networks adversarially aligned?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.15447/) (2023)
- [TextGrad: Automatic "Differentiation" via Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07496/) (2024)
- [MiniLMv2: Multi-Head Self-Attention Relation Distillation for Compressing Pretrained Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.15828/) (2020)
- [Magentic-One: A Generalist Multi-Agent System for Solving Complex Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04468/) (2024)
- [AutoDAN-Turbo: A Lifelong Agent for Strategy Self-Exploration to Jailbreak LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.05295/) (2024)
- [AdvPrompter: Fast Adaptive Adversarial Prompting for LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16873/) (2024)
- [LLM Defenses Are Not Robust to Multi-Turn Human Jailbreaks Yet](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15221/) (2024)
- [X-Teaming: Multi-Turn Jailbreaks and Defenses with Adaptive Multi-Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13203/) (2025)
- [LLMs know their vulnerabilities: Uncover Safety Gaps through Natural Distribution Shifts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10700/) (2024)
- [FLIRT: Feedback Loop In-context Red Teaming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04265/) (2023)
- [Best-of-N Jailbreaking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03556/) (2024)
- [Reasoning-Augmented Conversation for Multi-Turn Jailbreak Attacks on Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11054/) (2025)
- [EasyJailbreak: A Unified Framework for Jailbreaking Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12171/) (2024)
- [Foot-In-The-Door: A Multi-turn Jailbreak for LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19820/) (2025)
- [Automated Red Teaming with GOAT: the Generative Offensive Agent Tester](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01606/) (2024)
- [AutoRedTeamer: Autonomous Red Teaming with Lifelong Attack Integration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.15754/) (2025)
- [Lessons from Defending Gemini Against Indirect Prompt Injections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.14534/) (2025)
- [Jailbreaking Large Language Models Against Moderation Guardrails via Cipher Characters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.20413/) (2024)
- [h4rm3l: A language for Composable Jailbreak Attack Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.04811/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Not All Turns Matter: Credit Assignment for Multi-Turn Jailbreaking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.08778/) (2026)
- [MT-JailBench: A Modular Benchmark for Understanding Multi-Turn Jailbreak Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.11002/) (2026)
- [SoK: Intent-Oriented Systematization of Multi-Turn LLM Jailbreaks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.01117/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Models (LLMs) are improving at an exceptional rate. With the advent of agentic workflows, multi-turn dialogue has become the de facto mode of interaction with LLMs for completing long and complex tasks. While LLM capabilities continue to improve, they remain increasingly susceptible to jailbreaking, especially in multi-turn scenarios where harmful intent can be subtly injected across the conversation to produce nefarious outcomes. While single-turn attacks have been extensively explored, adaptability, efficiency and effectiveness continue to remain key challenges for their multi-turn counterparts. To address these gaps, we present PLAGUE, a novel plug-and-play framework for designing multi-turn attacks inspired by lifelong-learning agents. PLAGUE dissects the lifetime of a multi-turn attack into three carefully designed phases (Primer, Planner and Finisher) that enable a systematic and information-rich exploration of the multi-turn attack family. Evaluations show that red-teaming agents designed using PLAGUE achieve state-of-the-art jailbreaking results, improving attack success rates (ASR) by more than 30% across leading models in a lesser or comparable query budget. Particularly, PLAGUE enables an ASR (based on StrongReject) of 81.4% on OpenAI's o3 and 67.3% on Claude's Opus 4.1, two models that are considered highly resistant to jailbreaks in safety literature. Our work offers tools and insights to understand the importance of plan initialization, context optimization and lifelong learning in crafting multi-turn attacks for a comprehensive model vulnerability evaluation.