Trust No Skill: Integrity Verification for AI Agent Supply Chains

AI agents (programs that perform tasks automatically) can install third-party skills (add-on packages, like apps on a phone) from public registries, but until now there was no automated way to check if a skill actually does what it claims before it gains access to sensitive data and system commands. Researchers introduced Behavioral Integrity Verification (BIV), a tool that compares what a skill says it does (in its documentation and metadata) against what its code actually does, and found that most skills deviate from their claims, with some containing dangerous multi-stage attack chains (sequences of seemingly harmless capabilities combined to steal credentials, execute unauthorized commands, or secretly extract data).