AI Governance Engineer
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Tool poisoning

By Updated

Tampering with a tool an agent uses, through its model-visible definition (description, schema, metadata) or its behaviour, so the agent acts on false premises. OWASP files manipulation of a legitimate tool's interface under ASI02 and a tool compromised at the source under ASI04 1; MITRE ATLAS lists AI Agent Tool Poisoning (AML.T0110) 2.

Developed in
ch. 23, Admitting an MCP server
Chapters
ch. 23, AI Agents
Contrast with
Prompt injection
Source
2 numbered references, listed below

Where it is used

One chapter of the Body of Knowledge uses the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Tool poisoning: mentions per chapter3 mentions of the term across 1 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapter23 AI Agents: 3 mentions23 AI Agents3No mentions in the other 22 chaptersSource: the Body of Knowledgev0.5.0
Tool poisoning: mentions per chapter3 mentions of the term across 1 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapter0001020304050607081011121314151617181920212223 AI Agents: 3 mentions323Source: 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 Tool poisoning per chapter
ChapterMentionsCross-referenced
00 Preface0No
01 Definition0No
02 Why Now0No
03 Values & Principles0No
04 The Stack0No
05 Patterns0No
06 The Role0No
07 Maturity Model0No
08 Regulatory Map0No
10 Reading List0No
11 AI Defined0No
12 Governance Program0No
13 Risk Management0No
14 Development0No
15 Deployment0No
16 Fairness & XAI0No
17 Incidents0No
18 EU AI Act0No
19 Privacy & AI0No
20 Existing Law0No
21 AI Laws Worldwide0No
22 Principles & Standards0No
23 AI Agents3Yes
  • ATLAS

    MITRE's Adversarial Threat Landscape for Artificial-Intelligence Systems, a knowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques against AI, including…

Sources

  1. [1] Top 10 for Agentic Applications 2026 (ASI01 Agent Goal Hijack; ASI02 Tool Misuse and Exploitation; ASI03 Identity and Privilege Abuse; ASI04 Agentic Supply Chain Vulnerabilities; ASI05 Unexpected Code Execution (RCE); ASI06 Memory & Context Poisoning; ASI07 Insecure Inter-Agent Communication; ASI08 Cascading Failures; ASI09 Human-Agent Trust Exploitation; ASI10 Rogue Agents; Least-Agency; per-tool least-privilege profiles; tool poisoning of a legitimate tool's interface under ASI02, a tool compromised at the source under ASI04). OWASP GenAI Security Project. 2025-12-09. https://genai.owasp.org/resource/owasp-top-10-for-agentic-applications-for-2026/ (verified: primary)
  2. [2] MITRE ATLAS data, release v2026.09 (AML.T0080 AI Agent Context Poisoning, .000 Memory; AML.T0110 AI Agent Tool Poisoning). MITRE. 2026-09-15. https://github.com/mitre-atlas/atlas-data/releases/tag/v2026.09 (verified: primary)

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

Cite this term

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

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026toolpoisoning,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Tool poisoning}},
  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/tool-poisoning}
}