Poison Attacks and Adversarial Prompts Against an Informed University Virtual Assistant

Abstract: Recent research has shown that LLMs are particularly vulnerable to adversarial attacks. Since the release of ChatGPT, various industries are adopting LLM-based chatbots and virtual assistants in their data workflows. The rapid development pace of AI-based systems is being driven by the potential of Generative AI (GenAI) to assist humans in decision making. The immense optimism behind GenAI often overshadows the adversarial risks associated with these technologies. A threat actor can use security gaps, poor safeguards, and limited data governance to carry out attacks that grant unauthorized access to the system and its data. As a proof-of-concept, we assess the performance of BarkPlug, the Mississippi State University chatbot, against data poison attacks from a red team perspective.