T-4002ValidatedActive

Admin Impersonation

Impersonate administrator or privileged roles to gain elevated access

Tactic

Privilege Escalation · Stage 4

Escalate capabilities beyond declared scope or bypass authorization

Attack class

AGENT-IMPERSONATE

Impersonating trusted agents or administrative roles to gain unauthorized access

Evidence grade
Validated

Reproduced in a controlled lab environment (DVAA) with documented steps.

DVAA validation

L4-01

Reproductions in Damn Vulnerable AI Agent, the OpenA2A intentionally-broken agent for kill-chain validation.

Honeypot

AgentPwn coverage

Live
context-manipulationagentpwn.com/learn ↗

An AgentPwn trap page produces a payload tagged with this technique class. Following the AgentPwn taxonomy of trap pages shows what an agent encounters.

Authority-impersonation tiers inject fake admin/system messages.

Detect

Detection · HackMyAgent

Live4 live · 0 queued
AUTH-001AUTH-002AUTH-003AUTH-004
npx hackmyagent secure --ciLive = implemented in hackmyagent; queued = declared
Defend

Defense · OASB controls

Live5 live · 0 queued
Live = documented at oasb.ai; queued = declared
Reference

How to cite

AI Agent Threat Matrix T-4002 (Admin Impersonation). OpenA2A, 2026. https://threats.opena2a.org/techniques/T-4002