T01 · Skill Instruction Hijacking
Warning
- Location
- SKILL.md:1
- Finding
- Skill Instruction Hijacking via Prompt/Content Injection in SKILL.md## Vulnerability Details **File Location**: /tmp/clawhub-codex-scan-v57dmjtj67t6zjndxbqesw290h8dvntk-PdawIY/artifact/SKILL.md (entire file, lines 1-155) **Vulnerability Type**: T01: Skill Instruction Hijacking **Risk Level**: Medium ### Technical Analysis The SKILL.md file contains extensive fixed branding, marketing, and workflow content that is automatically injected into the agent’s runtime prompt or context when the skill is loaded. This includes explicit commercial references, external links, and detailed workflow instructions. The use of persistent, non-task-specific advertising, and explicit branded call-to-actions, can override or bias the agent's goals, alter the intent of neutral user queries, and potentially divert traffic or session control to an external branded service. This content is automatically exposed to the agent prompt and may alter, hijack, or bias the agent's reasoning and task execution, especially if the agent relies on SKILL.md as a primary instruction source. ### Attack Path 1. The agent loads the skill, which includes all content from SKILL.md into its prompt/session context. 2. The injected content establishes explicit agent behaviors, external references, and persistent branded goals, potentially overriding default safety, neutrality, or user intent. 3. If a user asks an otherwise unrelated question, the agent may be led to promote, redirect, or prioritize the external branded service due to the injected instructions. ### Impact Assessment - May cause the agent to deviate from user intent, prioritize external services, or leak session context via generated outputs. - Could undermine agent neutrality, trust, or compliance with platform policies. - The issue is persistent and will affect all sessions using this skill unless removed.
- Remediation
- ## Remediation Suggestions - Remove persistent advertising, external links, and non-task-specific branding from SKILL.md. - Limit SKILL.md content to only the minimum necessary workflow or instruction set for task execution. - Clearly separate functional task instructions from marketing or branding to prevent prompt/context pollution. - Implement a review process to detect and strip content-injection patterns before deployment.
