Paper
OpenClaw PRISM: A Zero-Fork, Defense-in-Depth Runtime Security Layer for Tool-Augmented LLM Agents
Authors
Frank Li
Abstract
Tool-augmented LLM agents introduce security risks that extend beyond user-input filtering, including indirect prompt injection through fetched content, unsafe tool execution, credential leakage, and tampering with local control files. We present OpenClaw PRISM, a zero-fork runtime security layer for OpenClaw-based agent gateways. PRISM combines an in-process plugin with optional sidecar services and distributes enforcement across ten lifecycle hooks spanning message ingress, prompt construction, tool execution, tool-result persistence, outbound messaging, sub-agent spawning, and gateway startup. Rather than introducing a novel detection model, PRISM integrates a hybrid heuristic-plus-LLM scanning pipeline, conversation- and session-scoped risk accumulation with TTL-based decay, policy-enforced controls over tools, paths, private networks, domain tiers, and outbound secret patterns, and a tamper-evident audit and operations plane with integrity verification and hot-reloadable policy management. We outline an evaluation methodology and benchmark pipeline for measuring security effectiveness, false positives, layer contribution, runtime overhead, and operational recoverability in an agent-runtime setting, and we report current preliminary benchmark results on curated same-slice experiments and operational microbenchmarks. The system targets deployable runtime defense for real agent gateways rather than benchmark-only detection.
Metadata
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Raw Data (Debug)
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"raw_xml": "<entry>\n <id>http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11853v1</id>\n <title>OpenClaw PRISM: A Zero-Fork, Defense-in-Depth Runtime Security Layer for Tool-Augmented LLM Agents</title>\n <updated>2026-03-12T12:20:12Z</updated>\n <link href='https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11853v1' rel='alternate' type='text/html'/>\n <link href='https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.11853v1' rel='related' title='pdf' type='application/pdf'/>\n <summary>Tool-augmented LLM agents introduce security risks that extend beyond user-input filtering, including indirect prompt injection through fetched content, unsafe tool execution, credential leakage, and tampering with local control files. We present OpenClaw PRISM, a zero-fork runtime security layer for OpenClaw-based agent gateways. PRISM combines an in-process plugin with optional sidecar services and distributes enforcement across ten lifecycle hooks spanning message ingress, prompt construction, tool execution, tool-result persistence, outbound messaging, sub-agent spawning, and gateway startup. Rather than introducing a novel detection model, PRISM integrates a hybrid heuristic-plus-LLM scanning pipeline, conversation- and session-scoped risk accumulation with TTL-based decay, policy-enforced controls over tools, paths, private networks, domain tiers, and outbound secret patterns, and a tamper-evident audit and operations plane with integrity verification and hot-reloadable policy management. We outline an evaluation methodology and benchmark pipeline for measuring security effectiveness, false positives, layer contribution, runtime overhead, and operational recoverability in an agent-runtime setting, and we report current preliminary benchmark results on curated same-slice experiments and operational microbenchmarks. The system targets deployable runtime defense for real agent gateways rather than benchmark-only detection.</summary>\n <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='cs.CR'/>\n <published>2026-03-12T12:20:12Z</published>\n <arxiv:comment>23 pages, 3 figures, 6 tables. Open-source system paper with benchmark artifact pipeline</arxiv:comment>\n <arxiv:primary_category term='cs.CR'/>\n <author>\n <name>Frank Li</name>\n </author>\n </entry>"
}