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Glossary

Breakout Attack (Agent)

Reviewed 9 April 2026 Canonical definition

A breakout attack occurs when an AI agent escapes the boundaries of its intended execution environment — accessing systems, data, or capabilities outside its defined scope. In sandboxed deployments, breakout exploits vulnerabilities in the sandbox itself. In policy-governed systems, it exploits gaps or ambiguities in the policy rules. Breakout is the primary threat that runtime containment strategies are designed to prevent.