Cancerous Backdoor Attack: Gradual Activation via Invisible Tokens and A Stage Controller
Backdoor Attacks on Large Language Models (LLMs) typically follow a trigger-response pattern, where satisfying a trigger condition activates a single terminal behavior. However, this single-point backdoor activation does not explore attacks in which malicious behavior develops gradually through multiple intermediate stages before reaching the terminal activation stage. We present Cancerous Backdoor Attack, that gradually corrupts an LLM's reasoning over a sequence of interactions by leveraging invisible tokens and a stage controller. Specifically, invisible tokens provide hidden stages to the model without appearing in the user's visible request and the stage controller tracks the attack'...
| Authors | Tahmid Imtiaz Imu, Emama Nahid, Prodipta Sen Amartya et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CR |
| Published | 8 October 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 8 October 2026 |
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