SECAI Core · phase 11 of 15 · noun
Input manipulation
When an attacker crafts a malicious input to exploit the model's behavior
The Explain card
- Plain English
- Input manipulation is crafting a malicious input to exploit how a model behaves, whether that is a subtly altered image, a tweaked audio clip, or a carefully worded prompt.
- Example
- An attacker adds faint noise to a stop-sign photo. A human still sees a stop sign; the vehicle's vision model confidently reads "speed limit 45."
- Why it matters
- Models are decision-makers you cannot fully inspect, and they fail in ways humans would not. Defenders use adversarial testing, input validation, and redundancy so one crafted input cannot trigger a bad action.
- Hook
- Small change to the input, big change to the verdict.
Word knowledge
How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.
In a sentence
The red team tested input manipulation by embedding hidden instructions in a PDF uploaded to the document analysis model.
Why these words
- input English in plus put names the data, instructions, or signals supplied to a system
- manipulation French manipulation, ultimately from Latin manipulus, handful names the deliberate handling or alteration applied to the input
Where it came from
- Origin
- an English compound formed from input and manipulation
- Entered the language
- 20th century
- What changed
- Input broadened from something physically contributed to data supplied to a machine, while manipulation broadened from handling by hand to controlled alteration.
How it is spelled
- Pattern
- input is written as a closed compound
- Pattern
- manipulation keeps the noun-forming suffix -ation
Spelled like
- output
- throughput
- computation
- validation
Broken into chunks
-
in
- inbound
- intake
-
put
- output
- throughput
-
manipul
- manipulate
- manipulative
-
ation
- validation
- computation
What it sits beside
Same subject
- prompt injection
- adversarial example
- data poisoning
- jailbreak
Same shape
- output manipulation
- data manipulation
- prompt manipulation
AI input attacks
- prompt injection
- adversarial example
compound technical terms
- input validation
- output filtering
Where it sits in the deck
Phase 11: Threat Landscape: Attack Vectors and Adversarial Techniques
With defences named, learn what they must defend against — the full catalogue of attack techniques targeting AI systems, their inputs, outputs, training pipelines, and supply chains.
