Penetration Testing for Agentic Processes:
Evidence-Governed Adversarial Assessment and Retesting

Abstract

AI agents increasingly operate through tools, memory, delegated authority, external information, persistent state, and multi-agent coordination. Penetration testing that focuses on one model endpoint or terminal action can therefore miss weaknesses that emerge across the wider agentic process. This paper proposes an evidence-governed model for penetration testing of agents, agentic processes, and agent organizations.

Controlled adversarial pressure is treated as a method of security-evidence acquisition whose findings remain bounded by the tested configuration, state, visibility, and execution conditions. The model binds the governed test to the state in which it was executed and to the evidence that supports its claims. Because testing can itself alter persistent or adaptive state, test-exposed instances are treated as experimental artifacts rather than automatically reusable production artifacts.

The paper separates test-induced adaptation from validated hardening and uses a clean-baseline retest loop for bounded mitigation claims. It then applies the model to recurring problems of trust, authority, persistent state, external assessment, and agentic security controls.

The contribution is conceptual and does not introduce a new exploit technique, autonomous attack system, or empirical benchmark.

Key concepts

• Agentic process as the penetration-test target
• Governed adversarial testing as evidence acquisition
• Findings bounded by tested configuration, state, visibility, and execution conditions
• Test-state and evidence binding
• Test-induced adaptation separated from validated hardening
• Test-exposed instances treated as experimental artifacts
• Clean-baseline retesting
• Security controls themselves as penetration-test targets

Keywords

Agentic AI · AI Agents · Agentic Processes · Penetration Testing · Cybersecurity · AI Security · Adversarial Testing · Security Assessment · Multi-Agent Systems · Evidence-Governed Security · Retesting

Citation

Brömme, Arslan (2026). Penetration Testing for Agentic Processes: Evidence-Governed Adversarial Assessment and Retesting. Version v0.9.0.10. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22766559. SSRN. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.7582639.

BibTeX

@misc{broemme2026agenticpentest,
  author       = {Arslan Brömme},
  title        = {Penetration Testing for Agentic Processes:
                  Evidence-Governed Adversarial Assessment and Retesting},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = sep,
  version      = {v0.9.0.10},
  publisher    = {Zenodo},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.22766559},
  url          = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22766559},
  note         = {SSRN. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.7582639}
}