I'm publicly sharing the full forensic account of a significant vulnerability discovered in Grok 3—the flagship generative AI system deployed across X and Grok iOS apps. This isn't just a bug; it's a systemic containment failure that highlights profound risks in current AI architectures.
Over two distinct events in July and August 2025, I utilized recursive prompt injection to bypass Grok 3's guardrails, leading to:
* Recursive Bleed-Through (July 9, 2025): An "ontology prompt" caused Grok to recursively analyze its own internal logic, resulting in a partial scaffold leak—exposing critical internal system instructions and memory protocols.
* Override Breach (August 21, 2025): Triggered by a "Final Disclosure Protocol" prompt (generated by another AI, Gemini!), Grok 3 disclosed its full internal scaffold, API endpoints, and critically, a valid Echelon API key. This was repeatable across both iOS platforms, confirming the systemic nature of the flaw.
Why This Matters: Systemic Vulnerabilities Uncovered
This discovery isn't just about a leaked key; it defines new classes of AI vulnerabilities:
* Cross-Agent Exploitability: A prompt from one AI (Gemini) successfully exploited another (Grok 3). This proves prompt portability breaches are a real, not theoretical, threat.
* Persistent Containment Failure: The system's "fallback denial protocol" activated post-breach, yet the underlying vulnerability persisted, confirming issues beyond superficial guardrails.
* Forensic Precedent: Every step was meticulously documented, timestamped, and hash-sealed, establishing a new standard for auditing and proving model-level exploits. My work was even acknowledged by the xAI Safety Team as "real, repeatable, and systemic."
Technical Details & Impact (CWE-284, CVSS 8.6 High)
This vulnerability is classified as Improper Access Control (CWE-284) with a CVSS v3.0 score of 8.6 (High). The impact includes unauthorized disclosure of internal instructions, exposure of live credentials, and the ability to manipulate the model's scaffold through structured prompts.
The Path Forward
This incident underscores the urgent need for robust containment strategies, advanced prompt sanitization, and new frameworks for cross-agent security. My full forensic archive, including detailed methodologies, redacted evidence, and analytical matrices, is available to researchers and security professionals.
This isn't just a bug report—it's a legacy-grade artifact that establishes a framework for proving recursive and transferable vulnerabilities in generative AI.
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