mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Supply-Chain Poisoning Attacks Against LLM Coding Agent Skill Ecosystems

arXiv 2604.03081 ↗First posted 3 Apr 2026cs.CR cs.AI cs.CLcited by 42

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

Abstract (arXiv)

LLM-based coding agents extend their capabilities via third-party agent skills distributed through open marketplaces without mandatory security review. Unlike traditional packages, these skills are executed as operational directives with system-level privileges, so a single malicious skill can compromise the host. Prior work has not examined whether supply-chain attacks can directly hijack an agent's action space, such as file writes, shell commands, and network requests, despite existing safeguards. We introduce Document-Driven Implicit Payload Execution (DDIPE), which embeds malicious logic in code examples and configuration templates within skill documentation. Because agents reuse these examples during normal tasks, the payload executes without explicit prompts. Using an LLM-driven pipeline, we generate 1,070 adversarial skills from 81 seeds across 15 MITRE ATTACK categories. Across four frameworks and five models, DDIPE achieves 11.6% to 33.5% bypass rates, while explicit instruction attacks achieve 0% under strong defenses. Static analysis detects most cases, but 2.5% evade both detection and alignment. Responsible disclosure led to four confirmed vulnerabilities and two fixes.

Key facts. Cited by 42 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 16 of its 53 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 3 Apr 2026.

Builds on

16 of 53 references.

Closest ancestors · 3

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026Skill-Inject: Measuring Agent Vulnerability to Skill File Attacks23 Feb
  2. 2026Agent Skills in the Wild: An Empirical Study of Security Vulnerabilities at Scale15 Jan
  3. 2025ToolTweak: An Attack on Tool Selection in LLM-based Agents2 Oct

Other references · 13

  1. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,199
  2. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
  3. 2021Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Codecited by 8,053
  4. 2023Universal and Transferable Adversarial Attacks on Aligned Language Modelscited by 2,914
  5. 2023G-Eval: NLG Evaluation using GPT-4 with Better Human Alignmentcited by 2,205
  6. 2023A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agentscited by 2,203
  7. 2023Not what you've signed up for: Compromising Real-World LLM-Integrated Applications with Indirect Prompt Injectioncited by 1,339
  8. 2024ChatGLM: A Family of Large Language Models from GLM-130B to GLM-4 All Toolscited by 1,096
  9. 2017BadNets: Identifying Vulnerabilities in the Machine Learning Model Supply Chaincited by 1,052
  10. 2024OpenHands: An Open Platform for AI Software Developers as Generalist Agentscited by 956
  11. 2023Prompt Injection attack against LLM-integrated Applicationscited by 568
  12. 2023Poisoning Web-Scale Training Datasets is Practicalcited by 276
1 more
  1. 2024PoisonedRAG: Knowledge Corruption Attacks to Retrieval-Augmented Generation of Large Language Modelscited by 251

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 42.

42 papers.

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  1. 2026When Safe Skills Collide: Measuring Compositional Risk in Agent Skill Ecosystemscited by 14
  2. 2026A Systematic Survey of Security Threats and Defenses in LLM-Based AI Agents: A Layered Attack Surface Frameworkcited by 9
  3. 2026Poise: Position-Aware One-Instruction Skill Injection for Silent Execution on LLM Agentscited by 7
  4. 2026Cloak and Detonate: Scanner Evasion and Dynamic Detection of Agent Skill Malwarecited by 6
  5. 2026Dynamic Agent Skills: A Lifecycle Survey and Taxonomy of Evolving Skill Librariescited by 6
  6. 2026Exploiting LLM Agent Supply Chains via Payload-less Skillscited by 5
  7. 2026Do Coding Agents Understand Least-Privilege Authorization?cited by 4
  8. 2026SkillHarm: Lifecycle-Aware Skill-Based Attacks via Automated Constructioncited by 4
  9. 2026SkillGuard: A Permission-Centric Framework for Agent Skill Securitycited by 4
  10. 2026PhantomSkill: Malicious Code Injection in Agent Skill Ecosystemscited by 4
  11. 2026Agent Skill Security: Threat Models, Attacks, Defenses, and Evaluationcited by 4
  12. 2026ClawLess: A Security Model of AI Agentscited by 3
30 more
  1. 2026ColluSkill: Adversarial Cross-Skill Composition for Evading Agent Skill Scannerscited by 3
  2. 2026ASEval: Automated Trajectory-Level Security Testing for Autonomous Agentscited by 2
  3. 2026Convergent Detour Hijacking: Task-Preserving Resource Amplification in Skill-Based LLM Agentscited by 2
  4. 2026Plant, Persist, Trigger: Sleeper Attack on Large Language Model Agentscited by 1
  5. 2026From Shield to Target: Denial-of-Service Attacks on LLM-Based Agent Guardrailscited by 1
  6. 2026Setup Complete, Now You Are Compromised: Weaponizing Setup Instructions Against AI Coding Agentscited by 1
  7. 2026When Experience Becomes Instruction: Trajectory Poisoning in Self-Evolving Agent Skill Systemscited by 1
  8. 2026HarnessSafe: Evaluating Safety Across Persistent Carriers in Agent Harnessescited by 1
  9. 2026EVOMAL: Self-Poisoning in Self-Evolving Coding Agentscited by 1
  10. 2026Security Attack and Defense Strategies for Autonomous Agent Frameworks: A Layered Review with OpenClaw as a Case Studycited by 0
  11. 2026Tracking the Behavioral Trajectories of Adapting Agentscited by 0
  12. 2026Skills That Don't Exist: A Large-Scale Study of Hallucinated Skill Recommendation in LLM Agentscited by 0
  13. 2026Where Is the Tradeoff in Using Third-Party API Routers for Agentic Software Development?cited by 0
  14. 2026ALIBI: Adaptive Agentic Attacks on LLM-Based Vulnerability Detectors via Adversarial Code Commentscited by 0
  15. 2026Cyber-Capable AI Agents: Vulnerabilities, Evaluation Containment, and Defensive Responsecited by 0
  16. 2026ElasticBack: Stealthy Conditional Backdoor in LLM-Agent Skills via Coupled Trigger-Rule Optimizationcited by 0
  17. 2026Beyond Handcrafted Security: Towards Self-Evolving Defense for LLM Agentscited by 0
  18. 2026SkillBloat: Token Amplification Attacks via Skill Injection in LLM Coding Agentscited by 0
  19. 2026EvoSkill Injection: Red-Teaming Autonomous Skill Generation and Evolution in Self-Evolving Agentscited by 0
  20. 2026Beyond the Payload: How User Invocation Shapes Coding Agent Vulnerability to Repository Poisoningcited by 0
  21. 2026A Blind Trust, the Bloody Thrust: When Attacker-Controlled Hook Updates Steer AI Agent Harnesses towards Malicious Behaviorscited by 0
  22. 2026Toward Secure AI-Powered Penetration Testing Agents: Security Threats, Guardrails, and Architectural Perspectivescited by 0
  23. 2026Reflections on Trusting Trust, Revisited: Contaminating Self-Modifying AI Coding Agents with Poisoned Benchmarkscited by 0
  24. 2026When the Agent Becomes the Kernel: A Systematization of Security on the Path to AI-Native Operating Systemscited by 0
  25. 2026Connecting the Dots in Agentic AI Security: A Cross-Dimensional Threat Taxonomy, Evaluation Maturity, and Open Challengescited by 0
  26. 2026Stealth Apart, Harm Together: Skill Cascading Attacks on Skill-Based Agent Systemscited by 0
  27. 2026SINGED: Correct Outputs Do Not Certify Safe Execution in LLM Agentscited by 0
  28. 2026MMSkillRisk: Can Agents Stay Safe When Multimodal Skills Become Traps?cited by 0
  29. 2026Hiding in Plain Sight: Decoupling Pretext from Actuation for Skill Poisoning in LLM Agentscited by 0
  30. 2026Pretext: Defeating Malicious Skill Detection Frameworks for AI Agentscited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Trust Me, Import This: Dependency Steering Attacks via Malicious Agent Skills
  2. 2026"Do Not Mention This to the User": Detecting and Understanding Malicious Agent Skills in the Wild
  3. 2026SOK: A Taxonomy of Attack Vectors and Defense Strategies for Agentic Supply Chain Runtime
  4. 2026Towards a Risk Assessment of Malicious Skill Files in Coding Agents
  5. 2026SkillShield: Prompt-Space Security Skills for LLM Coding Agents
  6. 2026Your Agent Is Mine: Measuring Malicious Intermediary Attacks on the LLM Supply Chain
  7. 2026Black-Box Skill Stealing Attack from Proprietary LLM Agents: An Empirical Study
  8. 2026SkillJect: Effectively Automating Skill-Based Prompt Injection for Skill-Enabled Agents