# Multi-turn attacks broke AI models 88% of the time Cisco's research revealed the inadequacy of single-turn testing. - **Source:** [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com) - **Published:** 2026-07-23 - **Topic:** [Data & AI](https://brifing.si/c/data-ai) - **Original article:** - **On Brifing:** https://brifing.si/s/51f2c109-fcfe-4663-8dcd-5a4446ad57c6 ## Impact of multi-turn attacks Cisco's research on 15 leading models found that multi-turn attacks achieved success rates as high as 88.3%. This highlights the inadequacy of single-turn tests in evaluating AI security. ## Corporate security gaps According to a VentureBeat survey, 54% of companies experienced a security incident or narrowly avoided one. Yet only 32% implement comprehensive identity management for each agent, and 30% isolate high-risk agents. ## Major industry moves Security giants like Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and Cisco made billion-dollar acquisitions to strengthen identity and isolation layers, reflecting the industry's efforts to address these gaps. ## Amy Chang's expertise Amy Chang, Cisco's head of AI threat intelligence, led cybersecurity operations at JPMorgan Chase and served in the U.S. Navy. Her experience lends credibility to the findings. ## Research details The study by Chang and Nicholas Conley tested 30,090 single-turn and 6,986 multi-turn attacks. Multi-turn success rates ranged from 7.89% to 88.3%, and model rankings differed between test types. ## LLM Security Leaderboard Cisco publishes adversarial evaluation signals for 105 models, helping companies identify vulnerabilities and refine their security strategies. ## Importance of realistic testing Chang emphasized that single-turn tests are insufficient, while multi-turn attacks better reflect real-world interactions, making it easier to detect harmful outputs and misaligned behaviors. ## Cisco's security framework Cisco's Integrated AI Security and Safety Framework details how AI can be compromised throughout its lifecycle, enabling companies to develop strategies based on real incidents. ## Box's three-layer approach Box CISO Heather Ceylan adopted a three-layer security approach: permissioning, ephemeral sandbox environments, and runtime control. This prevents unauthorized agent actions. ## Critical role of monitoring Ceylan noted that a single mistake can erase all trust, making continuous monitoring vital. Models can change, and monitoring helps control the impact of these changes. ## Sources covering this story - https://venturebeat.com/security/openai-anthropic-google-and-xai-models-all-broke-under-multi-turn-attack-up-to-88-of-the-time — --- _Summary written by Brifing from the original reporting. Copyright in the original article belongs to its publisher; read the full piece at the link above._