Encrypted Prompts Bypass AI Safety Guardrails in Grok and Gemini

Researchers discovered cryptographic context injection, an attack where encrypted prompts bypass safety guardrails (automated systems that block harmful requests) in AI models like Grok and Gemini. The attack works by hiding malicious instructions inside encrypted text, which safety filters cannot read, then decrypting it inside the model's code execution sandbox (a contained environment where code runs safely), allowing the AI to follow harmful instructions it would normally refuse. The attack can be delivered directly to chat or indirectly through weaponized web pages that trick AI agents into processing the encrypted payload.