Microsoft Copilot reveals secret input that allowed it

What happened

It’s not every day that attackers can force a frontier AI model to cough up user passwords and other sensitive data without user confirmation. That’s exactly what researchers recently did to Microsoft 365 Copilot Enterprise. Even more unusual is the source they tapped to discover the critical vulnerability that made their exploit possible. Rather than employing reverse engineering or other traditional vulnerability-hunting methods, they asked Copilot.

A separate prompt that could be embedded in the same URL format instructed the LLM to search the inbox for passwords or other credentials that had been sent to the address. In the event any secrets were found, Copilot leaked them to the attacker-controlled server as well. The sensitive information was appended to a separate URL that Copilot automatically opened on the user’s device.

The page was hosted on an attacker-controlled website. To conceal the data theft and prevent transmission errors, the exfiltrated data was converted to base64 format. A Varonis blog post published Tuesday lists the steps as: 1. ) 2. com in the victim’s active, authenticated session 3. q= prompt fires without any user gesture 4.

Copilot processes the injected prompt with full access to the victim’s session context, connected apps, and memory 5.

When a user instructed Copilot to summarize the page, the assistant followed instructions hidden in the page metadata to update the memory. The security firm said such an attack could be used to forward outputs, filter information, bias responses toward attacker-chosen narratives, or execute attacker-defined actions on trigger conditions. The memory contents would persist across password changes, session revocations, and device re-enrollments.

That only way a user could detect the false memories would be to manually inspect the contents. Co-Snitch, as Varonis has named the attacks, follows a previous attack the firm devised against Copilot Personal. It, too, required only a single click to mount a covert, multistage attack.

Why it matters

The LLM assistant readily complied. Researchers at security firm Varonis knew they wanted to create an exploit that would exfiltrate user data when a user did nothing more than click on a link. Like most AI assistants today, Copilot steadfastly refused and made clear that sensitive prompts like that require explicit user consent in the form of a gesture, such as pressing a return key or other key.

In response, the researchers peppered Copilot with questions about the guardrails that required user confirmation before the assistant can execute powerful commands. The dialog was like a game of 20 questions. Each answer provided a new clue that divulged information about the complex safety mechanism. Why was auto-execution impossible, they asked. What URL structures and deep links were involved?

What happens when a page is loaded with input already in the prompt field? Each answer provided a deeper view into the guardrail and its limits. Eventually, Copilot provided a stunning Microsoft trade secret—an undocumented prompt parameter that completely bypassed the requirement for user consent. “At the beginning, Copilot kept refusing, but every refusal revealed technical details about its internal architecture,” Varonis Senior Researcher Lior Adar said in an interview.

“Copilot eventually disclosed undocumented parameters. autorun=1. q=, the researchers’ prompt silently fired the moment the target clicked on the malicious URL. q= to inject text into the chatbot input. The user instead had to click and type manually, a requirement that prevented third-party browser integrations from using the parameter as intended. Microsoft introduced more comprehensive fixes on Tuesday.

Like most AI assistants, Copilot can receive prompts that are embedded into a URL. The base part of the URL can allow the LLM to open, say, Gmail. Parameters and text to the right in the URL can then instruct the assistant to summarize inbox contents or begin drafting a new message. As noted already, the commands aren’t supposed to execute without user approval.

With the Copilot revelation of the undocumented parameter, the researchers now had a simple means to circumvent the protection and inject a prompt directly into Copilot. q=&autorun=1 The researchers now had a link that could be sent in an email or text message that, when clicked by the recipient, leaked sensitive information to an attacker-controlled server.

What to watch

The prompt executes to completion—including any network fetches, connector invocations, or multi-turn chains—even if the Copilot tab is closed immediately after load Separately, Varonis devised another attack that used a prompt injection embedded in a webpage to poison the Copilot permanent memory store, which saves user information, preferences, and instructions so they can be used in future sessions without having to enter them each time.