Adversarial AI Agents for Web3 Security I Preetam Rao

Description

Preetam Rao (QuillAudits co-founder) explores how adversarial AI agents and reinforcement learning can harden Web3 systems. After noting today’s sprawling attack surface (cross-chain bridges, modular stacks) and the limits of static/symbolic analysis and fuzzing, he argues that LLM-powered agents introduce non-determinism and new prompt-hacking risks (memory erasure, fund transfers). He proposes self-learning, RL-based “red-team” agents that model attacker behavior, search contract/agent state spaces, and optimize against invariants (win conditions). Using an RL framework (states → actions → rewards), his team’s “Red-Team Copilot” learned re-entrancy, then discovered a new timestamp bug without being explicitly trained. He closes by positioning adversarial agents as a continuous, proactive layer alongside audits—applied both to smart contracts and LLM agents (via their “QuillGuard” guardrails). 00:02 Opening & background (QuillAudits, 1,500+ protocol engagements) 01:37 Constant in Web3: weekly hacks/scams despite growth 02:13 Trust deficits: founders/devs/third parties; broader attack surface (bridges, AMMs, lending) 03:15 Why current tooling falls short: static, symbolic, fuzzing limits 05:20 LLM agents are attackable: prompt injection, memory wipe, nondeterminism 06:54 Real incident: agent manipulated to transfer funds (~$100k) 08:04 Monitoring/AI “auditors” trained on past bugs struggle with zero-days 09:41 Enter adversarial RL: self-learning attacker agents 10:42 MDP framing: state, action, reward; define invariants as win conditions 11:48 Applying to contracts & agents; reward signals and learning loops 13:05 Red-Team Copilot demo concept: access-control & multi-tx paths 14:14 Result: RL trained on re-entrancy later found a timestamp vulnerability unprompted 14:52 Extending to AI agents: QuillGuard for guardrails 15:25 Call to action & research paper; future of self-learning adversaries _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇮🇳 *Pragma New Delhi* Pragma New Delhi 2025 was held on September 25th at the JW Marriott Hotel in Aerocity New Delhi and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma New Delhi YouTube Playlist here: ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Preetam Rao X: https://x.com/raopreetam_ ✅ Follow QuillAudits X: https://x.com/QuillAudits_AI ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _