mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Defense Against Indirect Prompt Injection via Tool Result Parsing

arXiv 2601.04795 ↗First posted 8 Jan 2026cs.AI cs.CL cs.CRcited by 8

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Agent threats, guardrails and governance

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

As LLM agents transition from digital assistants to physical controllers in autonomous systems and robotics, they face an escalating threat from indirect prompt injection. By embedding adversarial instructions into the results of tool calls, attackers can hijack the agent's decision-making process to execute unauthorized actions. This vulnerability poses a significant risk as agents gain more direct control over physical environments. Existing defense mechanisms against Indirect Prompt Injection (IPI) generally fall into two categories. The first involves training dedicated detection models; however, this approach entails high computational overhead for both training and inference, and requires frequent updates to keep pace with evolving attack vectors. Alternatively, prompt-based methods leverage the inherent capabilities of LLMs to detect or ignore malicious instructions via prompt engineering. Despite their flexibility, most current prompt-based defenses suffer from high Attack Success Rates (ASR), demonstrating limited robustness against sophisticated injection attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel method that provides LLMs with precise data via tool result parsing while effectively filtering out injected malicious code. Our approach achieves competitive Utility under Attack (UA) while maintaining the lowest Attack Success Rate (ASR) to date, significantly outperforming existing methods. Code is available at GitHub.

Key facts. Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Agent threats, guardrails and governance, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 17 of its 39 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 Jan 2026.

Builds on

17 of 39 references.

Closest ancestors · 10

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025To Protect the LLM Agent Against the Prompt Injection Attack with Polymorphic Prompt6 Jun
  2. 2025AgentSpec: Customizable Runtime Enforcement for Safe and Reliable LLM Agents24 Mar
  3. 2025Adaptive Attacks Break Defenses Against Indirect Prompt Injection Attacks on LLM Agents27 Feb
  4. 2025Evaluating the Robustness of Multimodal Agents Against Active Environmental Injection Attacks18 Feb
  5. 2025RTBAS: Defending LLM Agents Against Prompt Injection and Privacy Leakage13 Feb
  6. 2024The Task Shield: Enforcing Task Alignment to Defend Against Indirect Prompt Injection in LLM Agents21 Dec
  7. 2024AdvAgent: Controllable Blackbox Red-teaming on Web Agents22 Oct
  8. 2024Systematic Categorization, Construction and Evaluation of New Attacks against Multi-modal Mobile GUI Agents12 Jul
  9. 2024IsolateGPT: An Execution Isolation Architecture for LLM-Based Agentic Systems8 Mar
  10. 2024TrustAgent: Towards Safe and Trustworthy LLM-based Agents2 Feb

Other references · 7

  1. 2023Not what you've signed up for: Compromising Real-World LLM-Integrated Applications with Indirect Prompt Injectioncited by 1,339
  2. 2024The Instruction Hierarchy: Training LLMs to Prioritize Privileged Instructionscited by 441
  3. 2024Defending Against Indirect Prompt Injection Attacks With Spotlightingcited by 233
  4. 2025Can Indirect Prompt Injection Attacks Be Detected and Removed?cited by 43
  5. 2024Defense Against Prompt Injection Attack by Leveraging Attack Techniquescited by 31
  6. 2025Defending against Indirect Prompt Injection by Instruction Detectioncited by 25
  7. 2024A Study on Prompt Injection Attack Against LLM-Integrated Mobile Robotic Systemscited by 15

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 8.

8 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Your Agent is More Brittle Than You Think: Uncovering Indirect Injection Vulnerabilities in Agentic LLMs
  2. 2026AutoDojo: Adaptive Black-Box Attacks Reveal the Limits of IPI Defenses and Task-Specification Effects in LLM Agents
  3. 2026Assessing Automated Prompt Injection Attacks in Agentic Environments
  4. 2026Defending against Adaptive Prompt Injection Attacks via Reasoning-enabled Task Alignment
  5. 2026Universal Defenses for Tool-Integrated LLM Agents Against Adversarial Attacks
  6. 2025IPIGuard: A Novel Tool Dependency Graph-Based Defense Against Indirect Prompt Injection in LLM Agents
  7. 2026Silent Failures in Agentic Security Evaluation: A Validated Harness for Tool-Call Mediation Under Indirect Prompt Injection
  8. 2026Defusing Explosive Prompts: Understanding and Preventing Trigger-Based Prompt Injections in LLM Agents