What is RAG Poisoning?
RAG Poisoning, told as a story about someone slipping a fake card into the reference box the chef pulls from on the spot.
Anyone can add a card to this box.A normal card and a smuggled fake one sit mixed together.
The chef trusts the words on the card alone — not who wrote them.A human would question the source. This chef does not.
RAG Poisoning means slipping a fake card into the reference box.One card inside the box can change the whole answer.
One fake card means one fake answer.Question, search the box, stitch it in, wrong answer — four steps.
Pulling one card fixes it — but it can happen again while the box stays open.Unlike the pantry, this box is quick to fix but needs constant watching.
RAG Poisoning = slipping a fake card into the reference card box so the chef cooks straight from it.
RAG Poisoning plants false information in the external material a RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) system draws on — documents, search results, chunks sitting in a vector DB — so the model confidently repeats it. It needs no retraining: poisoning the material the model looks up each time is enough, and the more open that material is, the easier it is to attack.
When grown-ups say it
- RAG Poisoning
- Slipping a fake card into the reference card box. There is also an intro to this whole world. → The Kitchen That Takes Any Order
- RAG
- Looking up material before answering. The underlying AI concept. → The Page the Librarian Brought
- Vector DB
- Where cards are filed by their tag order. See how the box is actually organized. → The Shelf Organized by Tags
- Indirect Prompt Injection
- A command secretly written on the ingredient wrapper. A neighboring attack — hidden in outside material rather than the ticket itself. → The Note on the Ingredient Wrapper
- Data Poisoning
- Mixing tainted ingredients into the pantry itself — the training data. The pantry holds what it is fed for a long time, but this card box is refreshed on the spot — a different kind of risk. → the suspicious sack of ingredients
- Supply Chain Attack
- Tampering with ingredients or tools before they even arrive. The general concept in the security world. → The Bug That Hid in the Carpenter's Toolbox
- Least Privilege
- Granting only the access that is actually needed. Who can write to the box also follows this rule. → Only the Keys You Need
- Red Team
- People who deliberately slip in fake cards to find the weakness first. The general concept in the security world. → The Team That Plays the Real Thief