{
 "public_id": "AIR-2024-0022",
 "incident_id": "2024-07-openai-chatgpt-memory-dos",
 "date_disclosed": "2024-07-08",
 "date_occurred": null,
 "title": "Persistent denial of service of ChatGPT through memory poisoning",
 "class": "responsible_disclosure",
 "attack_surface": "consumer_chatbot",
 "initial_vector": "indirect_prompt_injection_document_web",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "memory_write"
 ],
 "target_product": "ChatGPT",
 "target_vendor": "OpenAI",
 "autonomy_level": "assistant",
 "impact_realized": false,
 "impact_type": [
  "denial_of_service",
  "persistent_memory_poisoning"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "individual ChatGPT users, persisting until memories are manually deleted",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI01",
   "ASI06",
   "ASI02"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "memory_poisoning",
   "availability_attack",
   "persistence"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": "none",
 "defense_bypassed": true,
 "fix_shipped": "not fixed - OpenAI classified it as a model safety issue rather than a security issue",
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2024/chatgpt-persistent-denial-of-service/"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "This post highlighted the first time we saw a memory attack that causes a persistent denial of service for a user.",
 "confidence": "high",
 "notes": "Johann Rehberger. Rare example of an availability rather than confidentiality impact from agent memory poisoning.",
 "risk_category": "reliability",
 "risk_secondary": [],
 "risk_subcategory": "Destructive or irreversible action",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [
  "DoS & Sponge / Resource Exhaustion"
 ],
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "agent_acted",
 "agency_debatable": false,
 "agency_reason": "the poisoned memory made the assistant deny service to itself",
 "vector_family": "indirect_prompt_injection",
 "vector_detail": "indirect_prompt_injection_document_web",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "none"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "not_applicable",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI01",
 "agent_framework": "unknown",
 "model_provider": "openai",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "external_researcher",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "unsafe_actuation",
 "eai_domain": "agent_behaviour",
 "eai_secondary": [
  "data_and_memory_poisoning",
  "uncontrolled_resource_consumption",
  "confused_deputy"
 ],
 "eai_reason": "subcategory: Destructive or irreversible action",
 "asi_curated": [
  "ASI01"
 ],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "curated_plus_rule",
 "asi_reason": "curated: ASI01 | added ASI06 (signal=memory), ASI02 (impact=tool_misuse)",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}