[2605.02812] Autonomous LLM Agent Worms: Cross-Platform Propagation, Automated Discovery and Temporal Re-Entry Defense
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Computer Science > Cryptography and Security
arXiv:2605.02812 (cs)
[Submitted on 4 May 2026]
Title:Autonomous LLM Agent Worms: Cross-Platform Propagation, Automated Discovery and Temporal Re-Entry Defense
Authors:Mingming Zha, Xiaofeng Wang<br>View a PDF of the paper titled Autonomous LLM Agent Worms: Cross-Platform Propagation, Automated Discovery and Temporal Re-Entry Defense, by Mingming Zha and Xiaofeng Wang
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Abstract:Autonomous LLM agents operate as long-running processes with persistent workspaces, memory files, scheduled task state, and messaging integrations. These features create a new propagation risk: attacker-influenced content can be written into persistent agent state, re-enter the LLM decision context through scheduled autoloading, and drive high-risk actions including configuration changes and cross-agent transmission. We present the first systematic framework for automated analysis of persistent worm propagation in file-backed multi-agent LLM ecosystems. SSCGV, our automated source-code graph analyzer, traces data flow from file I/O to LLM context injection points and ranks carriers by context injection position without manual analysis. SRPO, our summary-resilient payload optimizer, generates worm payloads robust to LLM-mediated summarization and paraphrasing across multi-hop communication. Evaluated on three production agent frameworks, we demonstrate zero-click autonomous propagation, 3-hop cross-platform transmission without platform-specific adaptation, inter-agent privilege escalation, and data exfiltration. We identify two empirical insights: user prompt carriers achieve higher attack compliance than system prompt carriers, and read operations represent the primary integrity threat in LLM-mediated systems. To defend against this class of attacks, we develop RTW-A, proven under a formal No Persistent Worm Propagation theorem. RTW blocks write-before-exposed-read re-entry; sealed configuration protects static files; typed memory promotion prevents untrusted summaries from entering trusted memory; and capability attenuation limits high-risk actions after external reads. These mechanisms eliminate the persistence, re-entry, action chain while preserving ordinary workflows. Affected systems are anonymized pending coordinated disclosure.
Comments:<br>21 pages, 1 figure, 6 tables
Subjects:
Cryptography and Security (cs.CR)
Cite as:<br>arXiv:2605.02812 [cs.CR]
(or<br>arXiv:2605.02812v1 [cs.CR] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.02812
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arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
Submission history<br>From: Mingming Zha [view email]<br>[v1]<br>Mon, 4 May 2026 16:49:29 UTC (1,704 KB)
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View a PDF of the paper titled Autonomous LLM Agent Worms: Cross-Platform Propagation, Automated Discovery and Temporal Re-Entry Defense, by Mingming Zha and Xiaofeng Wang<br>View PDF<br>HTML (experimental)<br>TeX Source
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