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Jailbreak

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A prompt crafted to make a model disregard its safety instructions entirely. OWASP treats jailbreaking as a form of prompt injection 1; it is tested with red-team suites in the eval gate and contained at runtime by guardrails that do not depend on the model's own refusals.

Developed in
ch. 14, The test-type matrix
Chapters
ch. 14, Development · ch. 17, Incidents
Contrast with
Prompt injection
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Commonly confused

  • Prompt injection versus Jailbreak

    Prompt injection
    An input that alters a model's behaviour or output in ways its designers did not intend.
    Jailbreak
    A prompt crafted to make a model disregard its safety instructions entirely.

    The differenceAny input that alters behaviour in unintended ways, direct or hidden in processed content, against inputs aimed at dropping the safety rules.

    Why it mattersJailbreak evals test refusals; injection also needs least-privilege tools and isolation of untrusted content.

Where it is used

6 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Jailbreak: mentions per chapter6 mentions of the term across 6 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapterOther chapter01 Definition: 1 mention01 Definition103 Values & Principles: 1 mention03 Values & Principles104 The Stack: 1 mention04 The Stack114 Development: 1 mention14 Development115 Deployment: 1 mention15 Deployment117 Incidents: 1 mention17 Incidents1No mentions in the other 17 chaptersSource: the Body of Knowledgev0.5.0
Jailbreak: mentions per chapter6 mentions of the term across 6 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapterOther chapter0001 Definition: 1 mention1010203 Values & Principles: 1 mention10304 The Stack: 1 mention104050607081011121314 Development: 1 mention11415 Deployment: 1 mention1151617 Incidents: 1 mention117181920212223Source: the Body of Knowledge v0.5.0
Mentions per chapter How often each chapter names the term, with the chapters the glossary cross-references drawn solid. The longest bar is where to read the term in use; bars spread across many chapters mark a term that runs through the discipline.
Mentions as a table
Mentions of Jailbreak per chapter
ChapterMentionsCross-referenced
00 Preface0No
01 Definition1No
02 Why Now0No
03 Values & Principles1No
04 The Stack1No
05 Patterns0No
06 The Role0No
07 Maturity Model0No
08 Regulatory Map0No
10 Reading List0No
11 AI Defined0No
12 Governance Program0No
13 Risk Management0No
14 Development1Yes
15 Deployment1No
16 Fairness & XAI0No
17 Incidents1Yes
18 EU AI Act0No
19 Privacy & AI0No
20 Existing Law0No
21 AI Laws Worldwide0No
22 Principles & Standards0No
23 AI Agents0No

Patterns that use this term

One pattern page uses the term.

Jailbreak: related terms and patternsThe term at the centre; related terms on solid edges, the terms it is contrasted with on dashed edges, and the patterns that use it most in the colour of their layer.RelatedContrastColour: stack layer of the pattern03 EvalsJailbreakRelated terms (3)Eval gate · RelatedEval gateGuardrail · RelatedGuardrailRed teaming · RelatedRed teamingContrast with (1)Prompt injection · ContrastPrompt injectionPatterns using it (1)Adversarial Red-Team Suite, 1 mention · Uses the termAdversarial Red-Team Suite
Jailbreak: related terms and patternsThe term at the centre; related terms on solid edges, the terms it is contrasted with on dashed edges, and the patterns that use it most in the colour of their layer.RelatedContrastColour: stack layer of the pattern03 EvalsRelated terms (3)Eval gate · RelatedEval gateGuardrail · RelatedGuardrailRed teaming · RelatedRed teamingContrast with (1)Prompt injection · ContrastPrompt injectionPatterns using it (1)Adversarial Red-Team Suite, 1 mention · Uses the termAdversarial Red-Team SuiteJailbreak
The term's neighbourhood Terms related to this one on solid edges, terms it is often confused with on dashed edges, and the patterns that use it most in the colour of their layer. Follow a dashed edge to check the distinction before you use either term.
Neighbourhood as a table
Neighbourhood of Jailbreak
FamilyItemRelation
Related termsEval gateRelated
Related termsGuardrailRelated
Related termsRed teamingRelated
Contrast withPrompt injectionContrast
Patterns using itAdversarial Red-Team Suite, 1 mentionUses the term
  • Red teaming

    Structured adversarial testing of a model or agent to elicit failures (jailbreaks, injection, tool misuse) before an attacker does; treated here as an…

  • Eval gate

    A pipeline stage that fails the build when an eval fails; the mechanism that turns an evaluation into an enforced control rather than a report.

  • Guardrail

    A runtime control that inspects or mediates a model's or agent's inputs, outputs or tool calls and blocks, rewrites or escalates what breaks a policy, logging…

Sources

  1. [1] LLM01:2026 Prompt Injection (OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications 2026; direct and indirect injection; jailbreaking as the subset of prompt injection that aims to make the model violate its safety protocols; entry text in github.com/GenAI-Security-Project/GenAI-LLM-Top10, 2026/final). OWASP GenAI Security Project. 2026-08-03. https://genai.owasp.org/resource/owasp-genai-llm-top-10-2026/ (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Jailbreak. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/jailbreak. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026jailbreak,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Jailbreak}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/jailbreak}
}