attack arXiv Dec 29, 2025 · Dec 2025
Panagiotis Theocharopoulos, Ajinkya Kulkarni, Mathew Magimai.-Doss · International School of Athens · Idiap Research Institute
Embeds hidden multilingual prompt injections in 500 ICML papers to manipulate LLM reviewer scores, revealing language-dependent vulnerability
Prompt Injection nlp
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly considered for use in high-impact workflows, including academic peer review. However, LLMs are vulnerable to document-level hidden prompt injection attacks. In this work, we construct a dataset of approximately 500 real academic papers accepted to ICML and evaluate the effect of embedding hidden adversarial prompts within these documents. Each paper is injected with semantically equivalent instructions in four different languages and reviewed using an LLM. We find that prompt injection induces substantial changes in review scores and accept/reject decisions for English, Japanese, and Chinese injections, while Arabic injections produce little to no effect. These results highlight the susceptibility of LLM-based reviewing systems to document-level prompt injection and reveal notable differences in vulnerability across languages.
llm International School of Athens · Idiap Research Institute