arXiv subjects

Pengyu Sun

Publications and source records attributed to Pengyu Sun.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

VIPER-MCP: Detecting and Exploiting Taint-Style Vulnerabilities in Model Context Protocol Servers

Model Context Protocol (MCP) has emerged as a standard interface for connecting LLM agents to external tools. Because MCP servers expose privileged operations such as shell execution, network access, and file-system manipulation to agent-driven invocation, implementation flaws in tool handlers can create a direct path from natural-language input to security-sensitive sinks, potentially granting attackers remote code execution or full system compromise. Existing approaches either produce unconfirmed static alerts without dynamic validation, or rely on fixed template libraries that lack code-level guidance and fail to trigger vulnerabilities requiring specific parameter shapes or multi-step taint paths. In this paper, we present VIPER-MCP, the first end-to-end automated vulnerability auditing framework for MCP servers that not only detects taint-style vulnerabilities but also dynamically confirms their exploitability by producing concrete proof-of-concept prompts. VIPER-MCP introduces two novel techniques: (1) an anchor-query pass in a two-pass static analysis strategy that augments standard taint alerts with function-level structural context, resolving file-level static artifacts to specific MCP tool handlers and producing vulnerability-anchored call chains; and (2) a feedback-driven prompt evolution mechanism that employs dual-mutator scheduling that independently corrects tool-selection drift and deepens parameter penetration, together with fitness-scored seed selection to iteratively refine natural-language prompts toward vulnerable sinks. In a large-scale scan of 39,884 real-world open-source MCP server repositories, VIPER-MCP discovered 106 0-day vulnerabilities, all of which were confirmed through end-to-end exploit traces, with 67 CVE IDs assigned to date.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2026

On consistency around a $3 \times 3\times 3$ cube and Q3 analogue of the lattice Boussinesq equation

In this paper, we present two new aspects of lattice Boussinesq (BSQ) equations. First, we show that the lattice potential BSQ (lpBSQ) equation defined on a nine-point square lattice admits a natural extension of three-dimensional consistency to a $3\times 3\times 3$ cube\textemdash a cubic sublattice consisting of $27$ vertices. This extends the standard notion of three-dimensional consistency (defined on an elementary $2\times 2\times 2$ vertex cube for quadrilateral equations) to the non-quadrilateral, nine-point setting. Second, we construct a new three-component system which is referred to as the {\em lattice BSQ-Q3 system}, serving as the BSQ analogue of the Q3($\delta$) equation in the Adler-Bobenko-Suris (ABS) classification. The construction relies on a gauge transformation between Lax pairs of lpBSQ with the parameter $\delta$ arising from a $GL_3$ action. In a degeneration form, the system yields a $PGL_3$-invariant integrable lattice equation that generalises the $PGL_2$-invariant Schwarzian BSQ equation.

nlin.SI↗

arXiv2025

DMind Benchmark: Toward a Holistic Assessment of LLM Capabilities across the Web3 Domain

The Web3 ecosystem, underpinned by cryptographic primitives and decentralized consensus, represents a high-stakes environment where software vulnerabilities and incentive misalignments translate directly into financial loss. As Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly integrated into this domain for tasks ranging from smart contract auditing to decentralized finance analytics, ensuring their reliability is paramount. However, general-purpose benchmarks fail to capture the specialized reasoning required for these adversarial and protocol-driven settings. To bridge this gap, we introduce DMind Benchmark, a comprehensive evaluation suite designed to rigorously assess LLM proficiency across the Web3 stack. DMind Benchmark encompasses nine distinct subdomains (spanning infrastructure, smart contracts, token economics, etc.) and combines objective knowledge retrieval with complex open-ended reasoning tasks that emulate real-world operational challenges. We conduct an extensive evaluation of 31 leading proprietary and open-weights models, employing a contamination-aware pipeline and verifying the statistical robustness of our scoring protocol through rigorous cross-judge consistency checks. Our analysis reveals a critical dichotomy: while models demonstrate competence in foundational infrastructure concepts, they exhibit significant vulnerabilities in high-reasoning tasks such as security auditing. Furthermore, we provide a Pareto analysis to guide cost-effective deployment and demonstrate through adversarial experiments that high performance on DMind Benchmark necessitates genuine reasoning rather than superficial memorization. Since its open-source release in April 2025, DMind Benchmark achieved the #1 trending position on Hugging Face for nearly a week and accumulated over 13k downloads by June 2026, establishing itself as a standard for advancing secure and trustworthy AI in Web3.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2023

Unmasking Role-Play Attack Strategies in Exploiting Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Systems

The rapid growth and adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi) systems have been accompanied by various threats, notably those emerging from vulnerabilities in their intricate design. In our work, we introduce and define an attack strategy termed as Role-Play Attack, in which the attacker acts as multiple roles concurrently to exploit the DeFi system and cause substantial financial losses. We provide a formal definition of this strategy and demonstrate its potential impacts by revealing the total loss of \$435.1M caused by 14 historical attacks with applying this pattern. Besides, we mathematically analyzed the attacks with top 2 losses and retrofitted the corresponding attack pattern by concrete execution, indicating that this strategy could increase the potential profit for original attacks by \$3.34M (51.4%) and \$3.76M (12.0%), respectively.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2021

Classification of integrable boundary equations for integrable quad-graph systems

In the context of integrable systems on quad-graphs, the boundary consistency around a half of a rhombic dodecahedron, as a companion notion to the three-dimensional consistency around a cube, was introduced as a criterion for defining integrable boundary conditions for quad-graph systems with a boundary. In this paper, we formalize the notions of boundary equations as boundary conditions for quad-graph systems, and provide a systematic method for solving the boundary consistency, which results in a classification of integrable boundary equations for quad-graph equations in the Adler-Bobenko-Suris classification. This relies on factorizing, first the quad-graph equations into pairs of dual boundary equations, and then the consistency on a rhombic dodecahedron into two equivalent boundary consistencies. Generalizations of the method to rhombic-symmetric equations are also considered.

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