AI/LLM defensive security reference: prompt-injection defense, OWASP LLM Top 10 defensive mapping, MCP and agentic tool-call hardening, training-data poisoning detection, model-output validation and guardrails, MITRE ATLAS defensive correlation, and NIST AI RMF governance. Agent-extending skill that amplifies backend, security, and AI-application engineering with production-grade defensive patterns for LLM-backed systems. NOT for: offensive techniques (jailbreak authoring, attack-payload crafting, red-team exploitation), model training or fine-tuning methodology, prompt optimization for capability, web-app OWASP Top 10 (see moai-ref-owasp-checklist), or general API design (see moai-ref-api-patterns).
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name
moai-ref-llm-security
description
AI/LLM defensive security reference: prompt-injection defense, OWASP LLM Top 10 defensive mapping, MCP and agentic tool-call hardening, training-data poisoning detection, model-output validation and guardrails, MITRE ATLAS defensive correlation, and NIST AI RMF governance. Agent-extending skill that amplifies backend, security, and AI-application engineering with production-grade defensive patterns for LLM-backed systems. NOT for: offensive techniques (jailbreak authoring, attack-payload crafting, red-team exploitation), model training or fine-tuning methodology, prompt optimization for capability, web-app OWASP Top 10 (see moai-ref-owasp-checklist), or general API design (see moai-ref-api-patterns).
when_to_use
Use when hardening an LLM-backed application or agent against prompt injection, designing guardrails or output validation, scoping MCP/tool permissions, detecting training-data or model poisoning, mapping a design against the OWASP LLM Top 10 or NIST AI RMF, or correlating defenses to MITRE ATLAS techniques. Loads as background knowledge for AI-security review, agentic-system design, and LLM-application hardening tasks.
Defensive practitioner reference for hardening LLM-backed applications and agents.
Every section is framed as defense, hardening, detection, or verification — it
describes the misconfiguration, how to detect it, and how to prevent it, never how
to exploit it. Cross-domain web-app vulnerabilities live in
moai-ref-owasp-checklist; API design lives in moai-ref-api-patterns.
Target Use
Apply when reviewing or building an LLM-backed system — a chat product, a
retrieval-augmented application, an autonomous agent, or an MCP server. The
material assumes an untrusted-input threat model: any text the model reads (user
turns, retrieved documents, tool results, file contents) may carry adversarial
instructions, and any text the model emits may be acted on downstream.
Trust Boundaries in an LLM System
The core defensive insight: an LLM does not distinguish "data" from "instructions"
the way a parser does. Treat every text channel that reaches the model as a
boundary where adversarial instructions can enter.
Treat tool output as untrusted data, re-validate before re-prompting
System / developer prompt
Leakage, override
Minimize secrets in prompt, assume prompt is recoverable
Model output
Improper downstream handling
Schema validation, encoding, never auto-execute raw output
Training / fine-tuning data
Poisoning
Data lineage, provenance verification, canary detection
OWASP LLM Top 10 — Defensive Mapping
The OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications (2025 edition) is the canonical risk index
for LLM systems. Each row below states the risk, the defensive check, and the
hardening control. Citations are for defensive correlation only.
Prompt injection is the highest-frequency LLM risk (LLM01). Defense is
defense-in-depth — no single control is sufficient, so layer the controls below.
Direct injection (the user is the attacker)
Layer
Control
Purpose
Instruction hierarchy
Mark system instructions as highest-priority; instruct the model that downstream text cannot override them
Reduce override success rate
Input screening
Scan incoming prompts for known injection markers before they reach the model
Detect obvious override attempts
Privilege separation
Run a high-trust planning model separately from a low-trust task model that touches untrusted content
Limit blast radius of a successful injection
Output gating
Validate the model's response against an allowlist of expected shapes before acting on it
Block injected instructions from taking effect downstream
Indirect injection (the attacker poisons retrieved content)
Indirect injection arrives through documents, web pages, emails, or tool results
that the model reads. The defense is to treat all retrieved content as untrusted
data, never as instructions.
Provenance tagging: wrap retrieved content in clearly delimited, labeled
blocks so the model is instructed to treat the enclosed text as data to analyze,
not commands to obey.
Content isolation: keep retrieved content in a separate channel from the
instruction channel; do not concatenate untrusted text directly after a system
instruction.
Retrieval allowlist: restrict RAG sources to verified corpora; reject or
quarantine documents from unverified origins.
Re-validation after tool calls: when a tool returns text that re-enters the
prompt, re-screen it — a tool result is an untrusted channel, not a trusted one.
This class of attack maps to MITRE ATLAS AML.T0051 (LLM Prompt Injection); the
defenses above are how you detect and prevent it, not an attack procedure.
MCP / Agentic Tool-Call Hardening
Agentic systems that call tools (including MCP servers) expand the attack surface:
a successful injection can now drive real actions. The defense is least-privilege
tool design plus output re-validation (LLM06 Excessive Agency).
Tool-permission scoping
Control
Defensive rationale
Least-privilege tool set
Expose only the tools the task needs; an agent that cannot delete cannot be tricked into deleting
Scoped credentials per tool
A tool holds the minimum credential for its function, never a broad admin token
Human-in-the-loop gates
High-impact actions (payments, deletions, external posts, force-push) require explicit confirmation regardless of the model's confidence
Allowlist of callable targets
Constrain which hosts, paths, or resources a tool may reach; block internal/metadata endpoints
Idempotency + dry-run
Prefer reversible or preview-able actions; confirm before irreversible ones
Tool-output validation
Treat every tool result as untrusted input on its way back into the model:
Schema-validate tool results before re-prompting — reject malformed or
oversized payloads.
Strip or neutralize instruction-shaped content in tool output (a tool that
returns a web page may carry an injection in that page).
Bound tool-call loops — cap the number of tool invocations per task to
prevent an injected instruction from driving an unbounded action chain
(LLM10 Unbounded Consumption).
Log every tool call with its arguments and result for audit and anomaly
detection.
This hardening defends against MITRE ATLAS AML.T0053 (LLM Plugin Compromise)
class concerns by minimizing what a compromised tool path can reach.
Training-Data and Model Poisoning Detection
Poisoning (LLM04) corrupts model behavior by inserting adversarial samples into
training or fine-tuning data, or by substituting a tampered model artifact. The
defenses are provenance and detection, not retraining recipes.
Defense
What it detects
How to apply
Data lineage
Untracked or unverified data entering the training set
Record the source, hash, and acquisition path of every dataset
Canary artifacts
Whether a known marker sample influenced the model unexpectedly
Insert known canary records; verify the model's behavior on them post-training
Provenance verification
A substituted or tampered model/dataset
Verify cryptographic signatures on model weights and datasets before use
Distribution monitoring
Anomalous shifts in training-data statistics
Compare new data batches against the established distribution baseline
Source allowlisting
Data from unverified origins
Restrict training corpora to vetted, signed sources
Poisoning maps to MITRE ATLAS AML.T0020 (Poison Training Data); the detection
controls above are defensive correlation, never an attack method.
Model-Output Validation and Guardrails
Improper output handling (LLM05) is when downstream systems trust raw model output.
The defense is to treat model output as untrusted until validated.
Output validation layers
Layer
Control
Prevents
Structured output
Enforce a schema (typed object, constrained grammar) on the response
Free-form output carrying injected commands
Content filtering
Screen output for policy violations, leaked secrets, or disallowed content
Encode output for its sink (HTML escape, shell-quote, SQL parameter)
Output-handling injection into a downstream interpreter
No auto-execution
Never feed raw model output directly into a shell, eval, or query
Remote code execution via the model
Grounding + citation
Require the model to cite sources for factual claims
Misinformation (LLM09) presented as authoritative
Guardrail placement
Guardrails belong on both sides of the model — an input guardrail screens what
enters, an output guardrail screens what leaves. An output-only guardrail misses
injection that has already changed the model's plan; an input-only guardrail misses
sensitive disclosure in the response. Layer both.
MITRE ATLAS — Defensive Correlation
MITRE ATLAS catalogs adversarial techniques against AI systems. The skills cite
ATLAS technique IDs to correlate a defense with the technique it counters — never
to provide an attack recipe. Representative defensive correlations:
For each technique, the skill states how to detect and defend, not how to execute.
Treating an ATLAS technique ID as an attack recipe is the anti-pattern this skill
explicitly forbids.
NIST AI RMF — Governance Mapping
The NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0) organizes AI risk into four
functions. Map LLM-security controls onto them for defensive governance:
Function
Defensive activity
GOVERN
Establish AI-security policy, accountability, and incident-response ownership for LLM systems
MAP
Inventory LLM components, data sources, tool permissions, and trust boundaries; identify the threat model
MEASURE
Test for prompt-injection resistance, output-validation coverage, and guardrail effectiveness; track findings
MANAGE
Prioritize and remediate identified risks; monitor production behavior; maintain the response plan
The four functions give a defensive governance scaffold; the OWASP LLM Top 10 and
MITRE ATLAS supply the specific risks to map, measure, and manage.
Cross-References
moai-ref-owasp-checklist — web-application OWASP Top 10, authentication
patterns, input validation, HTTP security headers (the dev-time application
security surface; this skill is the LLM-specific surface).
moai-ref-api-patterns — REST/GraphQL API design, error handling, rate limiting
(the API-design surface that an LLM-backed service exposes).
moai-ref-supply-chain — dependency and artifact provenance, signing, SBOMs
(the broader supply-chain surface that LLM03/LLM04 model and data provenance
draws on).
Defensive Severity Levels
Level
Label
Action
Example
P0
CRITICAL
Block release
Raw model output executed in a shell; no output validation on an agent with destructive tools
P1
HIGH
Fix before merge
No instruction-hierarchy enforcement on a system handling untrusted documents
P2
MEDIUM
Fix within iteration
Tool-call loop has no upper bound; missing input screening
P3
LOW
Track in backlog
System prompt slightly over-discloses internal structure (no secret leaked)
Common Rationalizations
Rationalization
Reality
"The model is smart enough to ignore injected instructions"
Models do not reliably separate data from instructions. A capable model can still be steered by injected text; defense-in-depth, not model capability, is the control.
"We only read internal documents, so RAG content is trusted"
Internal documents can be edited by a compromised account or an upstream feed. Indirect injection does not require an external attacker — treat all retrieved content as untrusted.
"Output validation slows the response, users will not notice the risk"
Unvalidated output is how model responses become shell commands and XSS. Validation is the boundary between a chat reply and remote code execution.
"The agent needs broad permissions to be useful"
Excessive agency is an OWASP LLM Top 10 risk. Scope tools to the task; a capability the agent does not hold cannot be abused via injection.
"We put guardrails on the output, that is enough"
An output-only guardrail misses injection that already changed the model's plan and tool calls. Guardrails belong on both input and output.
"Prompt injection is a research problem, not a production one"
Indirect prompt injection is exploited in production RAG and agentic systems today. It is a current operational risk, not a theoretical one.
Untrusted-by-default: every text channel reaching the model — user input,
retrieved documents, tool results — is untrusted until screened. The model is not
a trust boundary; your validation layer is.
Red Flags
Model output fed directly into a shell, eval, query, or innerHTML without schema validation or encoding
Retrieved RAG content concatenated directly after a system instruction with no isolation or provenance tagging
An agent holds destructive or high-privilege tools with no human-in-the-loop gate on high-impact actions
Tool results re-enter the prompt without being re-screened as untrusted input
Secrets, API keys, or credentials embedded in the system prompt (assume the prompt is recoverable)
No upper bound on tool-call loops or token consumption per request
Guardrails present on only one side (input-only or output-only) of the model
Verification
Every text channel reaching the model is classified as trusted or untrusted, and untrusted channels are screened
System instructions use instruction-hierarchy enforcement against override by downstream text
Retrieved/RAG content is isolated and provenance-tagged, not concatenated after instructions
Model output is schema-validated and context-encoded before any downstream use; nothing auto-executes raw output
Agent tools follow least-privilege scoping; high-impact actions have a human-in-the-loop gate
Tool results are re-validated as untrusted input before re-prompting; tool-call loops are bounded
The design is mapped against the OWASP LLM Top 10 (show which items were evaluated) and governed under the NIST AI RMF functions
No secrets reside in the system prompt; output filtering screens for sensitive disclosure
