Research demo
PromptLock: Go ransomware that generates Lua payloads at runtime via a locally hosted gpt-oss-20b
AIR-2025-0117 AIR record · 2025-08-eset-promptlock
From the supporting source
The PromptLock malware uses the gpt-oss-20b model from OpenAI locally via the Ollama API to generate malicious Lua scripts on the fly, which it then executes.welivesecurity.com
The record
Disclosed
2025-08-26
Vendor
OpenAI (open-weight model) / Ollama
Product
Ollama-hosted gpt-oss-20b
Risk domain
Agent behaviour › Unsafe actuation
Also touches
Goal misalignment
System type
Generative model
Who acted
Agent acted (contested) — the sample calls a local model and executes the Lua it returns
Attack surface
Other
Autonomy level
Semi-autonomous
Initial vector
Uploaded sample analysis
Impact type
Ransomware capability
Confidence
High
Submitted by
EAI Internal
Crosswalk
- OWASP Agentic Top 10 (2026)
- ASI01 – Agent Goal Hijack
- MITRE ATLAS
- AML.T0048 – External Harms
- NIST AI RMF
- MEASURE 2.6; MANAGE 1.3
- EU AI Act
- Annex III §1(c)
- ISO/IEC
- TR 24028; 24029-1; 23894
- AIUC-1
- C. Safety
- Scope
- agent misuse
- Mitigation
- Require confirmation for destructive actions; Implement dry-run modes; Use layered safety controls.
- Taxonomy
- Enkrypt AI agent risk taxonomy · Black-Box Red Teaming of Agentic AI: A Taxonomy-Driven Framework for Automated Risk Discovery
Blast radius
None confirmed; samples uploaded to VirusTotal from the United States
Capability abused
Taxonomy & references
Curator notes
Instructive case of vendor announcement outrunning the evidence. ESET announced 'the first known AI-powered ransomware' on 26 Aug 2025; on 3 Sept 2025 they updated the post after NYU academics identified the samples as artefacts of their own 'Ransomware 3.0: Self-Composing and LLM-Orchestrated' study. It was never deployed against anyone. GTIG independently classifies PROMPTLOCK as 'Experimental'. Class set to research_demo, not in_the_wild.
Supporting sources
Cite as
Enkrypt AI. "PromptLock: Go ransomware that generates Lua payloads at runtime via a locally hosted gpt-oss-20b". AIR, AIR-2025-0117. https://agentincident.vercel.app/i/AIR-2025-0117/ (accessed 2026-10-19).