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arXiv · 2509.10540

EchoLeak: The First Real-World Zero-Click Prompt Injection Exploit in a Production LLM System

Pavan Reddy·Aditya Sanjay Gujral
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Abstract

Large language model (LLM) assistants are increasingly integrated into enterprise workflows, raising new security concerns as they bridge internal and external data sources. This paper presents an in-depth case study of EchoLeak (CVE-2025-32711), a zero-click prompt injection vulnerability in Microsoft 365 Copilot that enabled remote, unauthenticated data exfiltration via a single crafted email. By chaining multiple bypasses-evading Microsofts XPIA (Cross Prompt Injection Attempt) classifier, circumventing link redaction with reference-style Markdown, exploiting auto-fetched images, and abusing a Microsoft Teams proxy allowed by the content security policy-EchoLeak achieved full privilege escalation across LLM trust boundaries without user interaction. We analyze why existing defenses failed, and outline a set of engineering mitigations including prompt partitioning, enhanced input/output filtering, provenance-based access control, and strict content security policies. Beyond the specific exploit, we derive generalizable lessons for building secure AI copilots, emphasizing the principle of least privilege, defense-in-depth architectures, and continuous adversarial testing. Our findings establish prompt injection as a practical, high-severity vulnerability class in production AI systems and provide a blueprint for defending against future AI-native threats.

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Pavan Reddy, Aditya Sanjay Gujral. 2025-09-06. EchoLeak: The First Real-World Zero-Click Prompt Injection Exploit in a Production LLM System. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10540

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