Cyber Risks · Cisco Talos

Making sure the checks get printed

Summary: Cisco Talos disclosed CAIRN research showing malware authors embedding natural-language instructions in code to evade AI-assisted analysis, a trend it calls "A3: AI-Analysis Evasion," tracked over 18 months from simple comments telling an AI to ignore a file to "template spraying" aimed at specific large language models. Talos says these prompt-injection techniques steer the AI's verdict in the attacker's favor about 35 percent of the time, and that families like MANTLEMAZE pair the deceptions with abuse of vulnerable drivers to disable EDR from kernel space.

Bottom line: Attackers are writing these evasion instructions in plaintext because they expect AI in your analysis pipeline, and a 35 percent success rate is enough to matter when the same samples carry kernel-level EDR-killing capability.

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Topics
Governance, Risk & Compliance
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