Semantic Attacks: Exploiting What Agents See

Author here.

Correction: I accidentally submitted the Substack link instead of the full technical write-up. You can read the complete post with all the attack vectors here: https://niyikiza.com/posts/semantic-attacks/

We stumbled on these vectors while building an authorization protocol for agents.

Everyone seems focused on "Prompt Injection" (the brain), but the perception integrity seems to be under discussed. I look at agents like pilots flying on instruments: if the DOM feeds them false data, no amount of reasoning or prompt engineering can prevent the crash.

This post breaks down the specific ways attackers can compromise those instruments without touching the prompt.