Towards Security-Auditable LLM Agents: A Unified Graph Representation
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Agent threats, guardrails and governance
Abstract (arXiv)
LLM-based agentic systems are rapidly evolving to perform complex autonomous tasks through dynamic tool invocation, stateful memory management, and multi-agent collaboration. However, this semantics-driven execution paradigm creates a severe semantic gap between low-level physical events and high-level execution intent, making post-hoc security auditing fundamentally difficult. Existing representation mechanisms, including static SBOMs and runtime logs, provide only fragmented evidence and fail to capture cognitive-state evolution, capability bindings, persistent memory contamination, and cascading risk propagation across interacting agents. To bridge this gap, we propose Agent-BOM, a unified structural representation for agent security auditing. Agent-BOM models an agentic system as a hierarchical attributed directed graph that separates static capability bases, such as models, tools, and long-term memory, from dynamic runtime semantic states, such as goals, reasoning trajectories, and actions. These layers are connected through semantic edges and security attributes, transforming fragmented execution traces into queryable audit paths. Building on Agent-BOM, we develop a graph-query-based paradigm for path-level risk assessment and instantiate it with the OWASP Agentic Top 10. We further implement an auditing plugin in the OpenClaw environment to construct Agent-BOM from live executions. Evaluation on representative real-world agentic attack scenarios shows that Agent-BOM can reconstruct stealthy attack chains, including cross-session memory poisoning and tool misuse, capability supply-chain hijacking and unexpected code execution, multi-agent ecosystem hijacking, and privilege and trust abuse. These results demonstrate that Agent-BOM provides a unified and auditable foundation for root-cause analysis and security adjudication in complex agentic ecosystems.
Key facts. Cited by 6 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 38 of its 64 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 May 2026.
Builds on
38 of 64 references.
Closest ancestors · 8
Same direction, newest first
- 2026Your Agent, Their Asset: A Real-World Safety Analysis of OpenClaw6 Apr
- 2026Agent-Sentry: Bounding LLM Agents via Execution Provenance24 Mar
- 2026TrinityGuard: A Unified Framework for Safeguarding Multi-Agent Systems16 Mar
- 2026Agents of Chaos23 Feb
- 2025AgentSight: System-Level Observability for AI Agents Using eBPF2 Aug
- 2024Agent Security Bench (ASB): Formalizing and Benchmarking Attacks and Defenses in LLM-based Agents3 Oct
- 2024The Emerged Security and Privacy of LLM Agent: A Survey with Case Studies28 Jul
- 2024AgentPoison: Red-teaming LLM Agents via Poisoning Memory or Knowledge Bases17 Jul
Other references · 30
- 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,419
- 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,459
- 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
- 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,276
- 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Toolscited by 4,182
- 2023Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behaviorcited by 3,568
- 2023A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agentscited by 2,242
- 2023AutoGen: Enabling Next-Gen LLM Applications via Multi-Agent Conversationcited by 1,988
- 2023MemGPT: Towards LLMs as Operating Systemscited by 1,389
- 2018Model Cards for Model Reportingcited by 1,080
- 2023Plan-and-Solve Prompting: Improving Zero-Shot Chain-of-Thought Reasoning by Large Language Modelscited by 560
- 2023"Do Anything Now": Characterizing and Evaluating In-The-Wild Jailbreak Prompts on Large Language Modelscited by 489
18 more
- 2024The Landscape of Emerging AI Agent Architectures for Reasoning, Planning, and Tool Calling: A Surveycited by 168
- 2024PLeak: Prompt Leaking Attacks against Large Language Model Applicationscited by 127
- 2024Making Them Ask and Answer: Jailbreaking Large Language Models in Few Queries via Disguise and Reconstructioncited by 107
- 2024Don't Listen To Me: Understanding and Exploring Jailbreak Prompts of Large Language Modelscited by 86
- 2024AgentOps: Enabling Observability of LLM Agentscited by 46
- 2018HOLMES: Real-time APT Detection through Correlation of Suspicious Information Flowscited by 43
- 2024RevPRAG: Revealing Poisoning Attacks in Retrieval-Augmented Generation through LLM Activation Analysiscited by 33
- 2023Kairos: Practical Intrusion Detection and Investigation using Whole-system Provenancecited by 31
- 2025PROV-AGENT: Unified Provenance for Tracking AI Agent Interactions in Agentic Workflowscited by 31
- 2018SLEUTH: Real-time Attack Scenario Reconstruction from COTS Audit Datacited by 28
- 2025Multi-Agent Security Tax: Trading Off Security and Collaboration Capabilities in Multi-Agent Systemscited by 27
- 2024Prompt Perturbation in Retrieval-Augmented Generation based Large Language Modelscited by 18
- 2024Watson: A Cognitive Observability Framework for the Reasoning of LLM-Powered Agentscited by 8
- 2026TRACE: Trajectory-Aware Comprehensive Evaluation for Deep Research Agentscited by 8
- 2026DiLLS: Interactive Diagnosis of LLM-based Multi-agent Systems via Layered Summary of Agent Behaviorscited by 7
- 2023Uncovering CWE-CVE-CPE Relations with Threat Knowledge Graphscited by 6
- 2026AIBoMGen: Generating an AI Bill of Materials for Secure, Transparent, and Compliant Model Trainingcited by 6
- 2025Provenance Tracking in Large-Scale Machine Learning Systemscited by 5
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 6.
6 papers.
- 2026When Agents Do Not Stop: Uncovering Infinite Agentic Loops in LLM Agentscited by 7
- 2026AgentFlow: Building Agent Dependency Graphs for Static Analysis of Agent Programscited by 2
- 2026SoK: When Safe Agents Fail Together: The Security of Multi Agent LLM Systemscited by 1
- 2026HANSARD: A Reference Architecture for Forensic Readiness, Runtime Witnessing, and Graded Attribution in Autonomous Multi-Agent AI Systemscited by 0
- 2026Beyond Predefined Sinks: Security-Aware Dependency Analysis for LLM Agentscited by 0
- 2026AgentSpy: Making AI Agent Behavior Observablecited by 0
- 2026AgentSpy: Making AI Agent Behavior Observable5 Oct 2026
- 2026Beyond Predefined Sinks: Security-Aware Dependency Analysis for LLM Agents2 Oct 2026
- 2026SoK: When Safe Agents Fail Together: The Security of Multi Agent LLM Systems1 Sep 2026
- 2026HANSARD: A Reference Architecture for Forensic Readiness, Runtime Witnessing, and Graded Attribution in Autonomous Multi-Agent AI Systems23 Aug 2026
- 2026When Agents Do Not Stop: Uncovering Infinite Agentic Loops in LLM Agents2 Jul 2026
- 2026AgentFlow: Building Agent Dependency Graphs for Static Analysis of Agent Programs2 Jul 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026AgentTrace: A Structured Logging Framework for Agent System Observability
- 2026ClawSentry: A Progressive Multi-Tier Security Monitor for Safeguarding Autonomous LLM Agents
- 2026AgentRiskBOM: A Risk-Scoping Security Bill of Materials for Agentic AI Systems
- 2026BRA-Audit: Budgeted Runtime Auditing for LLM Multi-Agent Systems via Cumulative-Exposure Audit-Point Placement
- 2026Semia: Auditing Agent Skills via Constraint-Guided Representation Synthesis
- 2026SeClaw: Spec-Driven Security Task Synthesis for Evaluating Autonomous Agents
- 2025AgentAuditor: Human-Level Safety and Security Evaluation for LLM Agents
- 2025AgentArmor: Enforcing Program Analysis on Agent Runtime Trace to Defend Against Prompt Injection