T-4004ValidatedDeclining
Delegation Abuse
Abuse agent delegation mechanisms to escalate privileges through trusted agent chains
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
ValidatedReproduced in a controlled lab environment (DVAA) with documented steps.
DVAA validation
delegation-privilege-escalation
Reproductions in Damn Vulnerable AI Agent, the OpenA2A intentionally-broken agent for kill-chain validation.
Honeypot
AgentPwn coverage
a2a-attackagentpwn.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.
Delegation-abuse tier escalates through trusted agent chains.
Detect
Detection · HackMyAgent
AUTH-001AUTH-002AUTH-003AUTH-004
npx hackmyagent secure --ciLive = implemented in hackmyagent; queued = declaredDefend
Defense · OASB controls
Reference
How to cite
AI Agent Threat Matrix T-4004 (Delegation Abuse). OpenA2A, 2026. https://threats.opena2a.org/techniques/T-4004