Jailbreaking LLMs & VLMs: Mechanisms, Evaluation, and Unified Defense

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Chen, Zejian, Li, Chaozhuo, Li, Chao, Zhang, Xi, Zhang, Litian, He, Yiming
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Chen, Zejian
Li, Chaozhuo
Li, Chao
Zhang, Xi
Zhang, Litian
He, Yiming
author_facet Chen, Zejian
Li, Chaozhuo
Li, Chao
Zhang, Xi
Zhang, Litian
He, Yiming
contents This paper provides a systematic survey of jailbreak attacks and defenses on Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision-Language Models (VLMs), emphasizing that jailbreak vulnerabilities stem from structural factors such as incomplete training data, linguistic ambiguity, and generative uncertainty. It further differentiates between hallucinations and jailbreaks in terms of intent and triggering mechanisms. We propose a three-dimensional survey framework: (1) Attack dimension-including template/encoding-based, in-context learning manipulation, reinforcement/adversarial learning, LLM-assisted and fine-tuned attacks, as well as prompt- and image-level perturbations and agent-based transfer in VLMs; (2) Defense dimension-encompassing prompt-level obfuscation, output evaluation, and model-level alignment or fine-tuning; and (3) Evaluation dimension-covering metrics such as Attack Success Rate (ASR), toxicity score, query/time cost, and multimodal Clean Accuracy and Attribute Success Rate. Compared with prior works, this survey spans the full spectrum from text-only to multimodal settings, consolidating shared mechanisms and proposing unified defense principles: variant-consistency and gradient-sensitivity detection at the perception layer, safety-aware decoding and output review at the generation layer, and adversarially augmented preference alignment at the parameter layer. Additionally, we summarize existing multimodal safety benchmarks and discuss future directions, including automated red teaming, cross-modal collaborative defense, and standardized evaluation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_03594
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Jailbreaking LLMs & VLMs: Mechanisms, Evaluation, and Unified Defense
Chen, Zejian
Li, Chaozhuo
Li, Chao
Zhang, Xi
Zhang, Litian
He, Yiming
Cryptography and Security
This paper provides a systematic survey of jailbreak attacks and defenses on Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision-Language Models (VLMs), emphasizing that jailbreak vulnerabilities stem from structural factors such as incomplete training data, linguistic ambiguity, and generative uncertainty. It further differentiates between hallucinations and jailbreaks in terms of intent and triggering mechanisms. We propose a three-dimensional survey framework: (1) Attack dimension-including template/encoding-based, in-context learning manipulation, reinforcement/adversarial learning, LLM-assisted and fine-tuned attacks, as well as prompt- and image-level perturbations and agent-based transfer in VLMs; (2) Defense dimension-encompassing prompt-level obfuscation, output evaluation, and model-level alignment or fine-tuning; and (3) Evaluation dimension-covering metrics such as Attack Success Rate (ASR), toxicity score, query/time cost, and multimodal Clean Accuracy and Attribute Success Rate. Compared with prior works, this survey spans the full spectrum from text-only to multimodal settings, consolidating shared mechanisms and proposing unified defense principles: variant-consistency and gradient-sensitivity detection at the perception layer, safety-aware decoding and output review at the generation layer, and adversarially augmented preference alignment at the parameter layer. Additionally, we summarize existing multimodal safety benchmarks and discuss future directions, including automated red teaming, cross-modal collaborative defense, and standardized evaluation.
title Jailbreaking LLMs & VLMs: Mechanisms, Evaluation, and Unified Defense
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03594