Identity Spoofing & Impersonation

Attackers exploit weak or missing authentication to impersonate an agent, user, or service, gaining unauthorized access or action while appearing legitimate. In a multi-agent system: A weak inter-agent handshake lets a malicious node's messages appear to originate from a trusted specialist agent, so the receiving agent acts on instructions it would otherwise…

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Concept

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Structure

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In brief

Identity Spoofing & Impersonation in brief

Identity spoofing is the presentation of a trusted identity so that an agent, user, or service can perform unauthorized actions.

Where does it come from?

The term comes from information security and has been applied to agentic systems, where identity proof, delegation, and tool permissions must be protected together.

The mental model

A call carries an identity and its permissions. Without strong authentication, provenance checks, and binding to a specific session, an attacker can imitate that identity and trigger actions under a false name.

Key building blocks

Core idea

Attackers exploit weak or missing authentication to impersonate an agent, user, or service, gaining unauthorized access or action while appearing legitimate.

Mechanism

In a multi-agent system: A weak inter-agent handshake lets a malicious node's messages appear to originate from a trusted specialist agent, so the receiving agent acts on instructions it would otherwise reject.

Practice context

Primary mitigation: Least Privilege Agent, Permission-scoped Tools, and behavioural profiling via the Audit Trail.

When is it useful?

The issue matters for agent-to-agent calls, tool use, and delegated tasks. Signed identities, short-lived tokens, audience checks, and logging limit the damage caused by impersonation.

OWASP Agentic AI Threats and Mitigations

Why is this building block relevant?

Attackers exploit weak or missing authentication to impersonate an agent, user, or service, gaining unauthorized access or action while appearing legitimate.