Securing agentic apps: How to stop your AI agents from misusing their own tools
Blog post from WorkOS
The text discusses the concept of tool misuse and exploitation in agentic applications, specifically highlighting the risk identified as ASI02 in the OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications. It emphasizes the potential dangers when a trusted agent uses trusted tools in unexpected ways, leading to data breaches or other unintended consequences. The article outlines the limitations of relying solely on authorization, which checks if an agent is allowed to use a tool but not how it is used. It categorizes tool misuse into three areas: dangerous arguments to legitimate tools, dangerous tool chains, and emergent misuse from multi-step reasoning. The text suggests implementing a policy layer on top of authorization to evaluate the context of tool usage, including argument validation, chain and context analysis, and setting circuit breakers for high-risk operations. It describes building a layered defense strategy, incorporating identity and authorization, supply chain verification, and invocation policy to ensure agents act within approved boundaries. The article concludes by mentioning WorkOS as a provider of identity infrastructure that supports implementing these controls.