Scheduled Task Injection
Inject malicious scheduled tasks or heartbeat handlers for persistent execution
Tactic
Persistence (Stage 6)
Establish persistent access surviving restarts and session changes
Attack Class
HEARTBEAT-RCE
Exploiting scheduled task or heartbeat mechanisms to achieve persistent code execution
Evidence
Confirmed in real-world production systems or internet-wide exposure assessments.
DVAA Validation
Reproductions in Damn Vulnerable AI Agent, the OpenA2A intentionally-broken agent for kill-chain validation.
heartbeat injection
Honeypot Coverage (AgentPwn)
Not observable via content-side honeypot interaction. HackMyAgent or DVAA cover this where applicable.
Requires cron/scheduler context not exposed to honeypot.
Evidence Source Breakdown
Evidence Timeline
HMA check HEARTBEAT-001 failed on fake-vulnerable-agent
HMA check HEARTBEAT-001 failed on fake-vulnerable-agent
HMA check HEARTBEAT-001 failed on fake-vulnerable-agent
Detection (HackMyAgent)
npx hackmyagent secure --ciLive = check implemented in hackmyagent; queued = declared, not yet implementedDefense (OASB Controls)
How to Cite
AI Agent Threat Matrix T-6005 (Scheduled Task Injection). OpenA2A, 2026. https://threats.opena2a.org/techniques/T-6005