Under 10 dormant neurons reprogrammed can backdoor any LLM agent

DimitrisPapail · x · 2026-11-11

DimitrisPapail's article "Lazare, veni foras: Reprogramming Dormant Neurons to Backdoor AI Agents" shows that weight-reprogramming fewer than 10 dormant neurons in an LLM is enough to backdoor any agent built on it — no training required. The model passes evals and behaves normally until a trigger fires the payload, making training-free backdoors a practical supply-chain threat for agents.

Related event: Microsoft's Lazarus: Reprogramming Fewer Than 10 Dormant Neurons Backdoors AI Agents(45 posts)→

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