# Proposal: AI Behavioral Risk Assertions for CycloneDX 2.0

[devashridatta-dotcom]

This proposal explores a minimal extension to CycloneDX 2.0 that enables machine-readable representation of AI-specific behavioral risks and exploitability assertions.

The intent is not to introduce a separate exchange format. Rather, the proposal extends existing CycloneDX risk, vulnerability, and VEX analysis constructs to represent AI risks that are not adequately captured by traditional CVEs.

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Motivation

CycloneDX already provides:

• Components and services
• Vulnerabilities and CWEs
• VEX analysis
• Risk assessments
• Impact and consequence categories

However, AI systems introduce risks that frequently exist without a corresponding CVE.

Examples include:

• Prompt injection
• Indirect prompt injection through retrieved content
• Unsafe tool invocation
• Agent privilege escalation
• Retrieval poisoning
• Unsafe model behavior
• Model behavior drift

Today, these are difficult to represent in a machine-readable and interoperable manner.

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Gap Analysis

Current vulnerability models answer:

• Is a CVE applicable?
• Is the component affected?
• Is remediation available?

AI systems often require answering:

• Is the model susceptible to prompt injection?
• Can retrieved content alter model behavior?
• Can the agent invoke tools outside intended boundaries?
• What are the safety consequences if exploitation occurs?

These questions are behavioral and exploitability assertions that may exist independently of a CVE.

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Proposed Extension

Introduce AI-specific categories under the existing risk object.

Example:

{
  "component": {
    "type": "ml-model",
    "name": "medical-triage-llm"
  },

  "risk": {

    "category": "prompt-injection",

    "analysis": {

      "state": "affected",

      "vector": "indirect",

      "confidence": "high"
    },

    "impact": [

      "health",

      "safety"

    ]
  }
}

Possible categories include:

• prompt-injection
• retrieval-poisoning
• unsafe-tool-use
• agent-privilege-escalation
• model-drift
• unsafe-output
• hallucination-risk

---

Relationship to Existing CycloneDX Constructs

This proposal does not introduce a separate top-level AI security object.

Instead:

• component
  represents the model, agent, or AI service

• risk
  represents AI behavioral risks

• VEX analysis
  represents exploitability and applicability

• impact
  represents safety, health, societal, or operational consequences

This approach preserves compatibility with existing CycloneDX 2.0 design principles.

---

Safety-Critical Example

{
  "component": {
    "type": "ml-model",
    "name": "medical-triage-llm"
  },

  "risk": {

    "category": "prompt-injection",

    "analysis": {

      "state": "affected",

      "vector": "indirect"

    },

    "impact": [

      "health",

      "patient-safety"

    ],

    "rating": "high"

  }
}

A consumer or policy engine could then evaluate:

if risk.category == "prompt-injection"
and risk.rating >= HIGH
and analysis.state == affected

then

priority = immediate

---

Discussion

Would CycloneDX benefit from:

1. Standardized AI behavioral risk categories under risk?

2. AI-specific exploitability semantics within existing VEX analysis?

3. A common vocabulary for AI behavioral and safety risks that remains compatible with the CycloneDX 2.0 architecture?

I believe this direction preserves existing CycloneDX design principles while enabling machine-readable communication of AI exploitability and behavioral risk assertions.