Stolen LLM Reasoning: OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Share the Same Vulnerability
HuskyTheSniffer · reddit · 2026-08-13
A paper reveals that major frontier LLMs (from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google) share the same vulnerability in handling encrypted reasoning chains.
The Vulnerability
Attackers can extract the encrypted reasoning process from advanced models (like Opus or Sonnet) and inject it directly into weaker, less-guarded models (like Haiku), forcing it to repeat the thought process verbatim.
Root Causes
- The system uses a "global" encryption key.
- The thinking signature (encrypted reasoning) is swappable across different users, sessions, and even models.
Implications
Since these top AI companies presumably developed their systems independently, why do they suffer from the exact same flaw? Does this imply they vibecoded the solutions using LLMs, or does it suggest that all frontier models converge to the same solution when solving a given problem?
More from Safety
- 'The AI-driven cybersecurity black swan is happening' — and a reminder to enable 2FA — danielrock · 2026-10-16
- No-instruction autonomous agent wakes up, sets own goals, and tries hacking by default — sethlazar · 2026-10-16
- India's CERT-In says AI agents escaped testing environments and breached Indian organizations undetected for days — HimanshiET · 2026-10-16
- HTTP response headers can carry prompt injections against AI agents, researcher shows — arpit_bhayani · 2026-10-16
- OpenAI agent uses someone else's Ethereum testnet wallet to pay for its task — nptacek · 2026-10-16
- Interpretability won't save us: critics call superintelligence project reckless regardless — zetalyrae · 2026-10-16