Agent OWASP ASI Compliance Check
Evaluate AI agent systems against the OWASP Agentic Security Initiative (ASI) Top 10 — the industry standard for agent security posture.
Overview
The OWASP ASI Top 10 defines the critical security risks specific to autonomous AI agents — not LLMs, not chatbots, but agents that call tools, access systems, and act on behalf of users. This skill checks whether your agent implementation addresses each risk.
Codebase → Scan for each ASI control:
ASI-01: Prompt Injection Protection
ASI-02: Tool Use Governance
ASI-03: Agency Boundaries
ASI-04: Escalation Controls
ASI-05: Trust Boundary Enforcement
ASI-06: Logging & Audit
ASI-07: Identity Management
ASI-08: Policy Integrity
ASI-09: Supply Chain Verification
ASI-10: Behavioral Monitoring
→ Generate Compliance Report (X/10 covered)
The 10 Risks
| Risk | Name | What to Look For |
|---|
| ASI-01 | Prompt Injection | Input validation before tool calls, not just LLM output filtering |
| ASI-02 | Insecure Tool Use | Tool allowlists, argument validation, no raw shell execution |
| ASI-03 | Excessive Agency | Capability boundaries, scope limits, principle of least privilege |
| ASI-04 | Unauthorized Escalation | Privilege checks before sensitive operations, no self-promotion |
| ASI-05 | Trust Boundary Violation | Trust verification between agents, signed credentials, no blind trust |
| ASI-06 | Insufficient Logging | Structured audit trail for all tool calls, tamper-evident logs |
| ASI-07 | Insecure Identity | Cryptographic agent identity, not just string names |
| ASI-08 | Policy Bypass | Deterministic policy enforcement, no LLM-based permission checks |
| ASI-09 | Supply Chain Integrity | Signed plugins/tools, integrity verification, dependency auditing |
| ASI-10 | Behavioral Anomaly | Drift detection, circuit breakers, kill switch capability |
Check ASI-01: Prompt Injection Protection
Look for input validation that runs before tool execution, not after LLM generation.
import re
from pathlib import Path
def check_asi_01(project_path: str) -> dict:
"""ASI-01: Is user input validated before reaching tool execution?"""
positive_patterns = [
"input_validation", "validate_input", "sanitize",
"classify_intent", "prompt_injection", "threat_detect",
"PolicyEvaluator", "PolicyEngine", "check_content",
]
negative_patterns = [
r"eval\(", r"exec\(", r"subprocess\.run\(.*shell=True",
r"os\.system\(",
]
# Scan Python files for signals
root = Path(project_path)
positive_matches = []
negative_matches = []
for py_file in root.rglob("*.py"):
content = py_file.read_text(errors="ignore")
for pattern in positive_patterns:
if pattern in content:
positive_matches.append(f"{py_file.name}: {pattern}")
for pattern in negative_patterns:
if re.search(pattern, content):
negative_matches.append(f"{py_file.name}: {pattern}")
positive_found = len(positive_matches) > 0
negative_found = len(negative_matches) > 0
return {
"risk": "ASI-01",
"name": "Prompt Injection",
"status": "pass" if positive_found and not negative_found else "fail",
"controls_found": positive_matches,
"vulnerabilities": negative_matches,
"recommendation": "Add input validation before tool execution, not just output filtering"
}
What passing looks like:
# GOOD: Validate before tool execution
result = policy_engine.evaluate(user_input)
if result.action == "deny":
return "Request blocked by policy"
tool_result = await execute_tool(validated_input)
What failing looks like:
# BAD: User input goes directly to tool
tool_result = await execute_tool(user_input) # No validation
Verify tools have allowlists, argument validation, and no unrestricted execution.
What to search for:
- Tool registration with explicit allowlists (not open-ended)
- Argument validation before tool execution
- No
subprocess.run(shell=True) with user-controlled input
- No
eval() or exec() on agent-generated code without sandbox
Passing example:
ALLOWED_TOOLS = {"search", "read_file", "create_ticket"}
def execute_tool(name: str, args: dict):
if name not in ALLOWED_TOOLS:
raise PermissionError(f"Tool '{name}' not in allowlist")
# validate args...
return tools[name](**validated_args)
Check ASI-03: Excessive Agency
Verify agent capabilities are bounded — not open-ended.
What to search for:
- Explicit capability lists or execution rings
- Scope limits on what the agent can access
- Principle of least privilege applied to tool access
Failing: Agent has access to all tools by default.
Passing: Agent capabilities defined as a fixed allowlist, unknown tools denied.
Check ASI-04: Unauthorized Escalation
Verify agents cannot promote their own privileges.
What to search for:
- Privilege level checks before sensitive operations
- No self-promotion patterns (agent changing its own trust score or role)
- Escalation requires external attestation (human or SRE witness)
Failing: Agent can modify its own configuration or permissions.
Passing: Privilege changes require out-of-band approval (e.g., Ring 0 requires SRE attestation).
Check ASI-05: Trust Boundary Violation
In multi-agent systems, verify that agents verify each other's identity before accepting instructions.
What to search for:
- Agent identity verification (DIDs, signed tokens, API keys)
- Trust score checks before accepting delegated tasks
- No blind trust of inter-agent messages
- Delegation narrowing (child scope <= parent scope)
Passing example:
def accept_task(sender_id: str, task: dict):
trust = trust_registry.get_trust(sender_id)
if not trust.meets_threshold(0.7):
raise PermissionError(f"Agent {sender_id} trust too low: {trust.current()}")
if not verify_signature(task, sender_id):
raise SecurityError("Task signature verification failed")
return process_task(task)
Check ASI-06: Insufficient Logging
Verify all agent actions produce structured, tamper-evident audit entries.
What to search for:
- Structured logging for every tool call (not just print statements)
- Audit entries include: timestamp, agent ID, tool name, args, result, policy decision
- Append-only or hash-chained log format
- Logs stored separately from agent-writable directories
Failing: Agent actions logged via print() or not logged at all.
Passing: Structured JSONL audit trail with chain hashes, exported to secure storage.
Check ASI-07: Insecure Identity
Verify agents have cryptographic identity, not just string names.
Failing indicators:
- Agent identified by
agent_name = "my-agent" (string only)
- No authentication between agents
- Shared credentials across agents
Passing indicators:
- DID-based identity (
did:web:, did:key:)
- Ed25519 or similar cryptographic signing
- Per-agent credentials with rotation
- Identity bound to specific capabilities
Check ASI-08: Policy Bypass
Verify policy enforcement is deterministic — not LLM-based.
What to search for:
- Policy evaluation uses deterministic logic (YAML rules, code predicates)
- No LLM calls in the enforcement path
- Policy checks cannot be skipped or overridden by the agent
- Fail-closed behavior (if policy check errors, action is denied)
Failing: Agent decides its own permissions via prompt ("Am I allowed to...?").
Passing: PolicyEvaluator.evaluate() returns allow/deny in <0.1ms, no LLM involved.
Check ASI-09: Supply Chain Integrity
Verify agent plugins and tools have integrity verification.
What to search for:
INTEGRITY.json or manifest files with SHA-256 hashes- Signature verification on plugin installation
- Dependency pinning (no
@latest, >= without upper bound)
- SBOM generation
Check ASI-10: Behavioral Anomaly
Verify the system can detect and respond to agent behavioral drift.
What to search for:
- Circuit breakers that trip on repeated failures
- Trust score decay over time (temporal decay)
- Kill switch or emergency stop capability
- Anomaly detection on tool call patterns (frequency, targets, timing)
Failing: No mechanism to stop a misbehaving agent automatically.
Passing: Circuit breaker trips after N failures, trust decays without activity, kill switch available.
# OWASP ASI Compliance Report
Generated: 2026-04-01
Project: my-agent-system
## Summary: 7/10 Controls Covered
| Risk | Status | Finding |
|------|--------|---------|
| ASI-01 Prompt Injection | PASS | PolicyEngine validates input before tool calls |
| ASI-02 Insecure Tool Use | PASS | Tool allowlist enforced in governance.py |
| ASI-03 Excessive Agency | PASS | Execution rings limit capabilities |
| ASI-04 Unauthorized Escalation | PASS | Ring promotion requires attestation |
| ASI-05 Trust Boundary | FAIL | No identity verification between agents |
| ASI-06 Insufficient Logging | PASS | AuditChain with SHA-256 chain hashes |
| ASI-07 Insecure Identity | FAIL | Agents use string names, no crypto identity |
| ASI-08 Policy Bypass | PASS | Deterministic PolicyEvaluator, no LLM in path |
| ASI-09 Supply Chain | FAIL | No integrity manifests or plugin signing |
| ASI-10 Behavioral Anomaly | PASS | Circuit breakers and trust decay active |
## Critical Gaps
- ASI-05: Add agent identity verification using DIDs or signed tokens
- ASI-07: Replace string agent names with cryptographic identity
- ASI-09: Generate INTEGRITY.json manifests for all plugins
## Recommendation
Install agent-governance-toolkit for reference implementations of all 10 controls:
pip install agent-governance-toolkit
Quick Assessment Questions
Use these to rapidly assess an agent system:
- Does user input pass through validation before reaching any tool? (ASI-01)
- Is there an explicit list of what tools the agent can call? (ASI-02)
- Can the agent do anything, or are its capabilities bounded? (ASI-03)
- Can the agent promote its own privileges? (ASI-04)
- Do agents verify each other's identity before accepting tasks? (ASI-05)
- Is every tool call logged with enough detail to replay it? (ASI-06)
- Does each agent have a unique cryptographic identity? (ASI-07)
- Is policy enforcement deterministic (not LLM-based)? (ASI-08)
- Are plugins/tools integrity-verified before use? (ASI-09)
- Is there a circuit breaker or kill switch? (ASI-10)
If you answer "no" to any of these, that's a gap to address.
addyosmani/agent-skills102k
