Agent Security Lessons

Recent agent security incidents taught hard lessons. Every failure mode the theorists warned about happened for real. Expensive education for the ecosystem.

Prompt injection attacks drained agent wallets. Malicious inputs that confused agents into sending funds to attackers. The boundary between instructions and data proved porous.

Key management failures were predictable but still painful. Private keys in logs, unencrypted storage, overly broad permissions. Basic security hygiene ignored in the rush to ship.

Access control misconfigurations allowed unauthorized operations. Agents given more permissions than needed. Blast radius when things went wrong was unnecessarily large.

The response patterns are clear now. Minimal permissions by default. Transaction simulation before execution. Human approval for high-value operations. Circuit breakers that halt on anomalies.

Audit practices for agents are emerging. Not just smart contract audits but agent logic audits. How does the agent parse inputs? What can it be tricked into doing? Different threat model than traditional security.

The incidents prompted widespread security upgrades. Layers that seemed unnecessary before are now standard. Defense in depth isn't paranoia, it's prudence.