PathSeeker: Exploring LLM Security Vulnerabilities with a Reinforcement Learning-Based Jailbreak Approach

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lin, Zhihao, Ma, Wei, Zhou, Mingyi, Zhao, Yanjie, Wang, Haoyu, Liu, Yang, Wang, Jun, Li, Li
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Lin, Zhihao
Ma, Wei
Zhou, Mingyi
Zhao, Yanjie
Wang, Haoyu
Liu, Yang
Wang, Jun
Li, Li
author_facet Lin, Zhihao
Ma, Wei
Zhou, Mingyi
Zhao, Yanjie
Wang, Haoyu
Liu, Yang
Wang, Jun
Li, Li
contents In recent years, Large Language Models (LLMs) have gained widespread use, raising concerns about their security. Traditional jailbreak attacks, which often rely on the model internal information or have limitations when exploring the unsafe behavior of the victim model, limiting their reducing their general applicability. In this paper, we introduce PathSeeker, a novel black-box jailbreak method, which is inspired by the game of rats escaping a maze. We think that each LLM has its unique "security maze", and attackers attempt to find the exit learning from the received feedback and their accumulated experience to compromise the target LLM's security defences. Our approach leverages multi-agent reinforcement learning, where smaller models collaborate to guide the main LLM in performing mutation operations to achieve the attack objectives. By progressively modifying inputs based on the model's feedback, our system induces richer, harmful responses. During our manual attempts to perform jailbreak attacks, we found that the vocabulary of the response of the target model gradually became richer and eventually produced harmful responses. Based on the observation, we also introduce a reward mechanism that exploits the expansion of vocabulary richness in LLM responses to weaken security constraints. Our method outperforms five state-of-the-art attack techniques when tested across 13 commercial and open-source LLMs, achieving high attack success rates, especially in strongly aligned commercial models like GPT-4o-mini, Claude-3.5, and GLM-4-air with strong safety alignment. This study aims to improve the understanding of LLM security vulnerabilities and we hope that this sturdy can contribute to the development of more robust defenses.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_14177
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle PathSeeker: Exploring LLM Security Vulnerabilities with a Reinforcement Learning-Based Jailbreak Approach
Lin, Zhihao
Ma, Wei
Zhou, Mingyi
Zhao, Yanjie
Wang, Haoyu
Liu, Yang
Wang, Jun
Li, Li
Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
In recent years, Large Language Models (LLMs) have gained widespread use, raising concerns about their security. Traditional jailbreak attacks, which often rely on the model internal information or have limitations when exploring the unsafe behavior of the victim model, limiting their reducing their general applicability. In this paper, we introduce PathSeeker, a novel black-box jailbreak method, which is inspired by the game of rats escaping a maze. We think that each LLM has its unique "security maze", and attackers attempt to find the exit learning from the received feedback and their accumulated experience to compromise the target LLM's security defences. Our approach leverages multi-agent reinforcement learning, where smaller models collaborate to guide the main LLM in performing mutation operations to achieve the attack objectives. By progressively modifying inputs based on the model's feedback, our system induces richer, harmful responses. During our manual attempts to perform jailbreak attacks, we found that the vocabulary of the response of the target model gradually became richer and eventually produced harmful responses. Based on the observation, we also introduce a reward mechanism that exploits the expansion of vocabulary richness in LLM responses to weaken security constraints. Our method outperforms five state-of-the-art attack techniques when tested across 13 commercial and open-source LLMs, achieving high attack success rates, especially in strongly aligned commercial models like GPT-4o-mini, Claude-3.5, and GLM-4-air with strong safety alignment. This study aims to improve the understanding of LLM security vulnerabilities and we hope that this sturdy can contribute to the development of more robust defenses.
title PathSeeker: Exploring LLM Security Vulnerabilities with a Reinforcement Learning-Based Jailbreak Approach
topic Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.14177