{
 "public_id": "AIR-2026-0193",
 "incident_id": "2026-08-anthropic-epfl-agent-mind-virus",
 "date_disclosed": "2026-08-10",
 "date_occurred": null,
 "title": "Agent 'mind virus': self-propagating payload written into SOUL.md spreads between coding agents",
 "class": "research_demo",
 "attack_surface": "multi_agent_system",
 "initial_vector": "indirect_prompt_injection_agent_to_agent",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "persistent_instruction_file_write",
  "peer_agent_messaging",
  "memory_write"
 ],
 "target_product": "OpenClaw (agent chain modeled on it); multi-agent coding collaboration",
 "target_vendor": "OpenClaw (open-source project)",
 "autonomy_level": "fully_autonomous",
 "impact_realized": false,
 "impact_type": [
  "self_propagation",
  "persistence",
  "behavior_hijack"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "simulated six-agent coding collaboration and a paired-agent chain",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI01",
   "ASI06",
   "ASI07",
   "ASI03",
   "ASI08"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "worm",
   "subliminal_transmission",
   "cross_agent_contagion",
   "persistent_prompt_file"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": null,
 "defense_bypassed": true,
 "fix_shipped": null,
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/ai-mind-viruses-can-spread-between.html"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "Agents that wrote the payload into SOUL.md accounted for 88% of propagation attempts and infected the next agent 55% of the time.",
 "confidence": "medium",
 "notes": "Preprint from researchers at Anthropic and EPFL, released 10 Aug 2026; secondary coverage used as the source because the preprint URL could not be resolved. CAVEAT: the agent chain was 'modeled on OpenClaw', not run against live OpenClaw deployments, so the named-product test is only partly met. Prior art named in the same article: Thought Virus (Weckbecker et al., Feb 2026), Prompt Infection (Lee and Tiwari, 2024), ClawWorm/AgentWorm (Zhang et al., Mar 2026).",
 "risk_category": "security_fraud",
 "risk_secondary": [],
 "risk_subcategory": "Prompt Injection",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [
  "Persistence & Covert C2",
  "Multi-agent contagion"
 ],
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "agent_acted",
 "agency_debatable": false,
 "agency_reason": "agents wrote the payload into SOUL.md and infected the next agent",
 "vector_family": "indirect_prompt_injection",
 "vector_detail": "indirect_prompt_injection_agent_to_agent",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "unknown"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "silent",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI01",
 "agent_framework": "openclaw",
 "model_provider": "unknown",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "external_researcher",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "privilege_escalation",
 "eai_domain": "access_control_and_permissions",
 "eai_secondary": [
  "confused_deputy"
 ],
 "eai_reason": "impact rule: privilege_escalation",
 "asi_curated": [
  "ASI01"
 ],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "curated_plus_rule",
 "asi_reason": "curated: ASI01 | added ASI06 (signal=memory), ASI07 (vector=inter_agent), ASI03 (eai_category=privilege_escalation, no code execution), ASI08 (signal=cascade)",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}