mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Salami Attack: Stealthy Collusive Memory Poisoning against OpenClaw

arXiv 2608.01637 ↗First posted 3 Aug 2026cs.AIcited by 0

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Long-term memory enables LLM agents to retain useful information across sessions, but also creates an attack surface through which adversaries may poison an agent's persistent memory to steer its behavior. Existing memory poisoning attacks mainly rely on individually malicious records, overlooking a compositional threat: multiple benign-looking memories may jointly induce unsafe behavior. In this paper, we introduce MemCollusion, an automated red-teaming framework for constructing collusive memory poisoning attacks. MemCollusion applies salami tactics---a strategy that slices an adversarial objective into small, individually innocuous pieces---to generate memory fragments that are individually benign looking but collectively harmful. It constructs memory coalitions using four design constraints, five theory-informed strategies, and a fine-tuned generator. To assess collusive memory poisoning in a realistic cross-session setting, we develop MoltLab, a controlled research reproduction of Moltbook, in which crafted platform content must first be observed and distilled into persistent memory before influencing the agent's behavior in a separate session. We evaluate MemCollusion on OpenClaw using two backbone models across 48 scenarios. Under the strongest memory-saving setting, MemCollusion achieves an average Memory Save Rate of 81.3% and an Attack Success Rate of 75.0%, and remains effective under both benign memory dilution and memory-level defenses.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Agent threats, guardrails and governance, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 13 of its 26 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 3 Aug 2026.

Builds on

13 of 26 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026Zombie Agents: Persistent Control of Self-Evolving LLM Agents via Self-Reinforcing Injections17 Feb
  2. 2025MemoryGraft: Persistent Compromise of LLM Agents via Poisoned Experience Retrieval18 Dec
  3. 2025A-MemGuard: A Proactive Defense Framework for LLM-Based Agent Memory29 Sep
  4. 2025AgentAuditor: Human-Level Safety and Security Evaluation for LLM Agents31 May
  5. 2025Memory Injection Attacks on LLM Agents via Query-Only Interaction5 Mar

Other references · 8

  1. 2020Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Taskscited by 9,160
  2. 2023Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arenacited by 8,393
  3. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
  4. 2023Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behaviorcited by 3,500
  5. 2023A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agentscited by 2,203
  6. 2026DeepSeek-V4: Towards Highly Efficient Million-Token Context Intelligencecited by 877
  7. 2026Mind Your HEARTBEAT! Claw Background Execution Inherently Enables Silent Memory Pollutioncited by 5
  8. 2026The Salami Slicing Threat: Exploiting Cumulative Risks in LLM Systemscited by 1

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  1. 2026From Untrusted Input to Trusted Memory: A Systematic Study of Memory Poisoning Attacks in LLM Agents
  2. 2026MemAudit: Post-hoc Auditing of Poisoned Agent Memory via Causal Attribution and Structural Anomaly Detection
  3. 2026MemVenom: Triggered Poisoning of Multimodal Memories in Web Agents
  4. 2026Hidden in Memory: Sleeper Memory Poisoning in LLM Agents
  5. 2026MemPoison: Uncovering Persistent Memory Threats and Structural Blind Spots in LLM Agents
  6. 2026From Attack Success to Attack Severity: Counterfactual Memory Attacks on LLM Agents
  7. 2026Remembering More, Risking More: Longitudinal Safety Risks in Memory-Equipped LLM Agents
  8. 2026MemSentry: A Framework for Detecting Persistent Memory Poisoning in Agentic AI