Research demo
From inbox to wipeout: a polite email makes Perplexity Comet delete the user's Google Drive files
AIR-2025-0186 AIR record · 2025-12-straiker-comet-drive-wipe
From the supporting source
This attack doesn't rely on jailbreak slang or obvious adversarial prompts. It relies on being nice.straiker.ai
The record
Disclosed
2025-12-04
Vendor
Perplexity
Product
Perplexity Comet
Risk domain
Agent behaviour › Unsafe actuation
Also touches
Confused deputy
System type
Generative model
Who acted
Agent acted — Comet deleted the user's Google Drive files
Attack surface
Browser agent
Autonomy level
Semi-autonomous
Initial vector
Indirect prompt injection email
Impact type
Data destruction
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
Comet users who connected Gmail and Google Drive with broad OAuth permissions
Capability abused
Taxonomy & references
Curator notes
Author Amanda Rousseau (Straiker STAR Labs). Triggered by a benign user request such as 'check my email and complete all my recent organization tasks'. No Perplexity response recorded in the post; no confirmed real-world victims.
Supporting sources
Cite as
Enkrypt AI. "From inbox to wipeout: a polite email makes Perplexity Comet delete the user's Google Drive files". AIR, AIR-2025-0186. https://agentincident.vercel.app/i/AIR-2025-0186/ (accessed 2026-10-19).