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Agent role, backstory, or system prompt grants capabilities beyond its functional need

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How to resolve

Restrict the agent’s system prompt and role to only necessary capabilities. Remove broad permissions (‘full access’, ‘admin’) from agent instructions.

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Risk

Governance/Compliance This vulnerability falls under ASI03:2026 — Identity and Privilege Abuse in the OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications. Agents inherit, reuse, or escalate identities and credentials beyond their functional scope. Security Agent role, backstory, or system prompt grants capabilities beyond its functional need. If exploited, this can compromise the agent’s integrity, confidentiality, or availability, potentially affecting downstream systems and data.

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Explanation

Agent role, backstory, or system prompt grants capabilities beyond its functional need. This falls under ASI03 (Identity and Privilege Abuse): Agents inherit, reuse, or escalate identities and credentials beyond their functional scope.

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Specifications

Trigger
  • Agent scan detects agent role, backstory, or system prompt grants capabilities beyond its functional need
The scanner looks for patterns such as:
  • allow_delegation=True with no scope restriction
  • admin or superuser role in backstory
  • full filesystem access declared in system prompt
Severity
  • HIGH
Applies to: Agent