paper-with-me

Papers

HackSynth: LLM Agent and Evaluation Framework for Autonomous Penetration Testing

2024-12-02 · Lajos Muzsai, David Imolai, András Lukács

We introduce HackSynth, a novel Large Language Model (LLM)-based agent capable of autonomous penetration testing. HackSynth's dual-module architecture includes a Planner and a Summarizer, which enable it to generate commands and process feedback iteratively. To benchmark HackSynth, we propose two new Capture The Flag (CTF)-based benchmark sets utilizing the popular platforms PicoCTF and OverTheWire. These benchmarks include two hundred challenges across diverse domains and difficulties, providing a standardized framework for evaluating LLM-based penetration testing agents. Based on these benchmarks, extensive experiments are presented, analyzing the core parameters of HackSynth, including creativity (temperature and top-p) and token utilization. Multiple open source and proprietary LLMs were used to measure the agent's capabilities. The experiments show that the agent performed best with the GPT-4o model, better than what the GPT-4o's system card suggests. We also discuss the safety and predictability of HackSynth's actions. Our findings indicate the potential of LLM-based agents in advancing autonomous penetration testing and the importance of robust safeguards. HackSynth and the benchmarks are publicly available to foster research on autonomous cybersecurity solutions.

📄 PDF Abstract BibTeX arXiv:2412.01778

Code (1)

aielte-research/HackSynth 공식 구현

Tasks

Language ModelingLanguage ModellingLarge Language Model

Similar Papers 제목 키워드 기반

The Emergence of Autonomous Penetration Capabilities in Large Language Model-Powered AI Systems

2026-06-11 · Jiaqi Luo, Jiarun Dai, Zhile Chen, Jia Xu 외 arxiv

Nowadays, the autonomous execution of cyberattacks capable of causing substantial real-world harm is widely regarded as one of the critical red lines that frontier AI systems must not cross. Within this broader red-line …

AutoPenBench: Benchmarking Generative Agents for Penetration Testing

2024-10-04 · Luca Gioacchini, Marco Mellia, Idilio Drago, Alexander Delsanto 외

Generative AI agents, software systems powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), are emerging as a promising approach to automate cybersecurity tasks. Among the others, penetration testing is a challenging field due to th…

Benchmarking

xOffense: An Autonomous Multi-Agent Framework for Penetration Testing with Domain-Adapted Large Language Models

2025-09-16 · Phung Duc Luong, Le Tran Gia Bao, Nguyen Vu Khai Tam, Dong Huu Nguyen Khoa 외 arxiv

This work introduces xOffense, an AI-driven, multi-agent penetration testing framework that shifts the process from labor-intensive, expert-driven manual efforts to fully automated, machine-executable workflows capable o…

PentestEval: Benchmarking LLM-based Penetration Testing with Modular and Stage-Level Design

2025-12-16 · Ruozhao Yang, Mingfei Cheng, Gelei Deng, Tianwei Zhang 외 arxiv

Penetration testing is essential for assessing and strengthening system security against real-world threats, yet traditional workflows remain highly manual, expertise-intensive, and difficult to scale. Although recent ad…

Domain Adaptation

Decoupling Reconnaissance and Exploitation: Measuring the Capability Boundaries of LLM-Based Web Penetration Testing

2026-06-24 · Liwei Yu, Shuo Li, Ming Zhou, Ge Chu 외 arxiv

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown promise for automated penetration testing, yet existing end-to-end black-box evaluations are highly susceptible to error cascading: failures in early reconnaissance can mask an age…