# agent traps

> **TL;DR.** "Agent traps" is the shorthand English phrase that maps one-to-one to AI Agent Traps, the taxonomy Google DeepMind published on March 27, 2026 for adversarial web content that hijacks autonomous AI agents.

- **Category:** AI / Security / Agents
- **Stage:** validating
- **Age:** 81 days
- **Origin date:** 2026-03-27
- **First detected:** 2026-04-20
- **Canonical URL:** https://earlyterms.com/term/agent-traps
- **Sources:** 4 primary URLs

## Definition

"Agent traps" is the shorthand English phrase that maps one-to-one to AI Agent Traps, the taxonomy Google DeepMind published on March 27, 2026 for adversarial web content that hijacks autonomous AI agents. Without the "AI" prefix the phrase is ambiguous, colliding with SNMP agent traps and undercover-agent slang.

For the full six-category breakdown, the 86% WASP benchmark hijack rate, the Microsoft M365 Copilot exfiltration case, and the build/content opportunities around this category, read the canonical page at [ai-agent-traps](/terms/ai-agent-traps). This page exists as a discovery alias only; the research, sources, and taxonomy live there.

## Why it's emerging now

DeepMind's March 27, 2026 SSRN paper named six attack families under the banner "AI Agent Traps." English commentary consistently uses the AI-prefixed form to disambiguate from SNMP and pest-control meanings, so the bare alias inherits relevance but not search volume.

## Related terms

- *alias:* ai agent traps
- *related:* prompt injection
- *related:* jailbreak
- *related:* indirect prompt injection
- *related:* RAG poisoning
- *related:* OWASP LLM Top 10
- *related:* agent harness
- *related:* managed agents
- *related:* ai agent identity
- *alias:* AI 陷阱

## Sources

1. [Canonical EarlyTerms page: AI Agent Traps](/terms/ai-agent-traps)
2. [AI Agent Traps (SSRN, DeepMind, March 2026)](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6372438)
3. [The Decoder — Six traps that can easily hijack autonomous AI agents](https://the-decoder.com/google-deepmind-study-exposes-six-traps-that-can-easily-hijack-autonomous-ai-agents-in-the-wild/)
4. [SecurityWeek — Google DeepMind Researchers Map Web Attacks Against AI Agents](https://www.securityweek.com/google-deepmind-researchers-map-web-attacks-against-ai-agents/)

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_Generated by EarlyTerms · https://earlyterms.com/term/agent-traps_