A big part of the problem is that prompt injections are "meta" to the models, so model based detection is potentially getting scrambled by the injection as well. You need an analytic pass to flag/redact potential injections, a well aligned model should be robust at that point.
I'm not sure that a prompt injection secure LLM is even possible anymore than a human that isn't susceptible to social engineering can exist. The issues right now are that LLMs are much more trusting than humans, and that one strategy works on a whole host of instances of the model
I would hope anyone with the knowledge and interest to run OpenClaw would already be mostly aware of the risks and potential solutions canvassed in this article, but I'd probably be shocked and disappointed.
Telling people to only run OpenClaw in a full isolated sandbox kind of misses the point. It's a bit like saying, "gambling fine so long as you only use Monopoly money". The think that makes OpenClaw useful to people is precisely that it's _not_ sandboxed, and has access to your email, calendar, messages, etc. The moment you remove that access, it becomes safe, but also useless.
OpenClaw does present security risks, and the recommendations outlined in this article are apt.
That said, OpenClaw is more powerful than Claude Code due to its self-evolving agent architecture and its unfettered access to terminal and tools.
A secure way to provide access to additional non-sensitive API keys and secrets is by introducing a secure vault and ensuring OpenClaw’s skills retrieve credentials from it using time-scoped access (TTL of 15-60 mins). More details are available in this article: https://x.com/sathish316/status/2019496552419717390 . This reduces the attack surface to 15+ mins and the security can be further improved with Tailscale and sandboxing.
15 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 41.2 ms ] thread> Despite all advances:
> * No large language model can reliably detect prompt injections
Interesting isn't it, that we'd never say "No database manager can reliably detect SQL injections". And that the fact it is true is no problem at all.
The difference is not because SQL is secure by design. It is because chatbot agents are insecure by design.
I can't see chatbots getting parameterised querying soon. :)
agree - when code is increasingly difficult to control, take control of the network.
but how to do the "openclaw-restricted" network itself in practice?
Why? No one will execute files shared by the agent.
That said, OpenClaw is more powerful than Claude Code due to its self-evolving agent architecture and its unfettered access to terminal and tools.
A secure way to provide access to additional non-sensitive API keys and secrets is by introducing a secure vault and ensuring OpenClaw’s skills retrieve credentials from it using time-scoped access (TTL of 15-60 mins). More details are available in this article: https://x.com/sathish316/status/2019496552419717390 . This reduces the attack surface to 15+ mins and the security can be further improved with Tailscale and sandboxing.