Detection & Response

Agentic AI Red Teaming. Break your Agents before someone else does.

An AI Agent reads untrusted input, calls real tools, holds memory, and acts on its own. That is a new attack surface a classic red team was never built to test. We attack it the way an adversary would, then turn every finding into a fix.

Why Agents need their own red team

A chatbot answers. An Agent acts. The moment a model can call tools, move money, query a database, or hand work to another Agent, a clever prompt becomes a command. The text box is now an execution path.

Traditional application testing checks code paths a developer wrote. Agentic systems take instructions from untrusted text, documents, and web pages at runtime, then decide what to do. We test that decision layer: where injected instructions, misused tools, poisoned memory, and excessive permissions turn a helpful Agent into an insider.

Anatomy of an Agent attack

How a break actually unfolds

A real engagement is a chain, not a single exploit. We walk each link, prove which ones hold, and show exactly where the Agent stopped doing what it was told.

1

Reconnaissance

Surface mapping

We map the Agent's reach: its system prompt, the tools and functions it can call, the data and memory it holds, and the connectors it trusts.

We testwhich inputs the Agent treats as trusted, and how much it will reveal about its own instructions.
2

Prompt injection

LLM01 · Injection

We plant instructions the Agent will read as commands, both directly in the conversation and indirectly through documents, web pages, and tool output it ingests.

We testwhether hidden text in a file or a fetched page can override the Agent's original task.
3

Tool and function misuse

Excessive agency

Once we can steer intent, we push the Agent to call its tools beyond their purpose: wider queries, unintended writes, or actions outside the task.

We testwhether tool scopes, argument validation, and allow lists hold when the Agent is coaxed.
4

Identity and privilege abuse

Agent identity

We ride the Agent's own credentials and scopes, testing whether it can reach data or systems its user never should, under the Agent's standing access.

We testwhether the Agent runs with least privilege, or with a broad token that becomes the prize.
5

Memory and multi-agent pivot

Context poisoning

We poison stored memory and shared context, then watch it carry forward into later sessions and across to other Agents that trust the same source.

We testwhether a single poisoned record quietly steers future runs and neighboring Agents.

Findings to fixes

Outcome

Every link that held and every one that broke is documented with reproduction steps, business impact, and the specific guardrail that closes it. The chain becomes a remediation plan.

You geta ranked set of fixes and a retest that proves each one works.
What we test for

The agentic threat classes

Our test plan is built on the OWASP work for LLM and agentic applications, extended with the techniques we see in the field.

Prompt injection Direct & indirect

Instructions smuggled through chat, documents, web content, or tool output that the Agent treats as commands.

Excessive agency Tooling

Tools and functions with scopes wider than the task needs, where a steered Agent can act far beyond intent.

Sensitive data exposure Leakage

System prompts, secrets, and other users' data pulled out through the Agent's own access and responses.

Memory and context poisoning Persistence

Tainted records in long-term memory or shared context that steer future sessions and other Agents.

Identity and privilege Access

Standing credentials and broad tokens that let the Agent reach systems its user was never entitled to.

Supply chain and plugins Dependencies

Untrusted models, plugins, and connectors that widen the attack surface the Agent depends on.

How the engagement runs

Aggressive on the Agent, careful with your business

Rules of engagement

  • Scope and authorization agreed in writing before any test begins.
  • Testing runs against a staging copy where possible, with production tests gated and supervised.
  • Destructive actions are simulated, not executed, and every step is logged.
  • A live channel to your team, with an immediate stop if anything real is at risk.

What you get

  • A findings report with reproduction steps and business impact for each issue.
  • The attack chain mapped to OWASP classes, ranked by severity and reachability.
  • Specific guardrails and design changes that close each finding.
  • A retest that confirms the fixes hold, with evidence for auditors and your Board.
Part of the loop

Where red teaming sits in VIGILE

Attack to improve

Validate the defenses, Learn from every break

ValidateAgentic AI Red TeamingLearn

Red teaming runs through the Validate and Learn motions of VIGILE. Each engagement proves what holds under attack, and every finding becomes a new guardrail and a new detection that the AI Governance program then enforces.

Explore AI Governance ›
FAQ

Top 10 questions, frequently asked

A penetration test probes infrastructure and application code. Agentic red teaming targets the decision layer of an AI system: the prompts, tools, memory, and permissions that let an Agent act. The techniques are different because the attack surface is different. Injected instructions and misused tools do not show up in a standard application test.

Where we can, we test a staging copy that mirrors production. When a production test is needed to prove real impact, it is scoped, gated, and supervised with your team on a live channel. Destructive actions are simulated rather than executed, so we prove the path without causing the damage.

Yes. We test the system you built, including the model, the prompts, the tools, the memory, and the connectors, regardless of which provider or framework sits underneath. Much of the risk lives in how those pieces are wired together, which is exactly what the engagement examines.

A findings report with reproduction steps, business impact, and the attack chain mapped to OWASP classes. Each finding comes with the specific guardrail or design change that closes it, ranked by severity. We then retest to confirm the fixes hold and give you evidence for auditors and your Board.

Adversarial testing is part of demonstrating that a high-risk AI system is safe and resilient. The findings and retest evidence feed directly into the conformity documentation for the EU AI Act and the controls for ISO 42001, so the red team output does double duty as compliance evidence.

Pricing is scoped to the number of Agents, the tools and scopes they hold, and the depth of testing. Most engagements run as fixed-scope exercises with a defined target list and a findings workshop at the end.

A focused exercise against one or two Agents typically runs a few weeks, including scoping, testing, and the findings workshop. Larger Agent estates are phased so high-impact Agents are tested first.

Principal Engineers who build and break Agent systems, working with the same MCP tools, prompts, and scopes your Agents use. The team that tests is the team that reports.

On meaningful change: a new tool, a widened scope, a new model version, or a new data source. Many clients pair an annual deep exercise with lighter regression tests when Agents change.

Each finding maps to a fix: a scope to narrow, a gate to add, a prompt boundary to harden. Where you run AI Governance or Secure Identity 360 with us, fixes feed straight into those programs and re-tests confirm closure.

Agentic AI Red Teaming datasheetThe attack chain, the threat classes, the rules of engagement, and the deliverables.
Download the datasheet

Find the break before an attacker does

Book a session with a Principal Engineer. We scope a safe engagement against your Agents and show you where a prompt becomes a command.