ML Security PapersOn The Dangers of Poisoned LLMs In Security Automation
Patrick Karlsen, Even Eilertsen · University of Agder · University of Oslo
Demonstrates fine-tuning data poisoning that backdoors LLM-based security alert classifiers to dismiss targeted users' true positive alerts
This paper investigates some of the risks introduced by "LLM poisoning," the intentional or unintentional introduction of malicious or biased data during model training. We demonstrate how a seemingly improved LLM, fine-tuned on a limited dataset, can introduce significant bias, to the extent that a simple LLM-based alert investigator is completely bypassed when the prompt utilizes the introduced bias. Using fine-tuned Llama3.1 8B and Qwen3 4B models, we demonstrate how a targeted poisoning attack can bias the model to consistently dismiss true positive alerts originating from a specific user. Additionally, we propose some mitigation and best-practices to increase trustworthiness, robustness and reduce risk in applied LLMs in security applications.