These labels were automatically added by AI and may be inaccurate. For details, see About Literature Database.
Abstract
Multi-agent systems powered by large language models are advancing rapidly,
yet the tension between mutual trust and security remains underexplored. We
introduce and empirically validate the Trust-Vulnerability Paradox (TVP):
increasing inter-agent trust to enhance coordination simultaneously expands
risks of over-exposure and over-authorization. To investigate this paradox, we
construct a scenario-game dataset spanning 3 macro scenes and 19 sub-scenes,
and run extensive closed-loop interactions with trust explicitly parameterized.
Using Minimum Necessary Information (MNI) as the safety baseline, we propose
two unified metrics: Over-Exposure Rate (OER) to detect boundary violations,
and Authorization Drift (AD) to capture sensitivity to trust levels. Results
across multiple model backends and orchestration frameworks reveal consistent
trends: higher trust improves task success but also heightens exposure risks,
with heterogeneous trust-to-risk mappings across systems. We further examine
defenses such as Sensitive Information Repartitioning and Guardian-Agent
enablement, both of which reduce OER and attenuate AD. Overall, this study
formalizes TVP, establishes reproducible baselines with unified metrics, and
demonstrates that trust must be modeled and scheduled as a first-class security
variable in multi-agent system design.