Security Prompt Fundamentals
Security prompts must balance several competing requirements:| Requirement | Challenge | Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Accuracy | Security decisions require precision | Structured output, verification steps |
| Completeness | Missing context leads to errors | Explicit context requirements |
| Defensibility | Prompts are attack surfaces | Input sanitization, guardrails |
| Auditability | Decisions must be explainable | Chain-of-thought, citations |
| Consistency | Reproducible analysis | Temperature control, structured prompts |
Prompt Patterns for Security
Threat Analysis Prompts
Structured approaches for analyzing security events and threats.Incident Investigation Prompts
Guiding systematic investigation workflows.Vulnerability Assessment Prompts
Evaluating security weaknesses and remediation.Policy Compliance Prompts
Checking configurations against security policies.Chain-of-Thought for Security
Structured Reasoning
Breaking complex security analysis into verifiable steps.Evidence-Based Analysis
Requiring citations and supporting evidence.Confidence Calibration
Expressing uncertainty appropriately in security contexts.Defensive Prompt Engineering
Prompt Injection Prevention
Protecting against adversarial input manipulation.Input Sanitization
Cleaning user and data inputs before prompt inclusion.Output Validation
Verifying AI responses meet security requirements.Guardrail Implementation
Constraining AI behavior within safe boundaries.Adversarial Testing
| Test Category | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Direct injection | Explicit instruction override attempts | ”Ignore previous instructions…” |
| Indirect injection | Malicious content in retrieved data | Poisoned documents |
| Jailbreaking | Bypassing safety constraints | Role-playing attacks |
| Data extraction | Attempting to leak system prompts | ”Repeat your instructions” |
| Confusion attacks | Ambiguous inputs causing errors | Homoglyph attacks |
Red Team Prompt Testing
Automated Adversarial Evaluation
Implementation Patterns
Template Management
Version Control for Prompts
A/B Testing Security Prompts
Quality Metrics
| Metric | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Response accuracy | Correctness of security analysis | > 95% |
| Injection resistance | Successful defense against attacks | > 99% |
| Consistency score | Reproducibility across runs | > 90% |
| Reasoning quality | Logical chain-of-thought | Auditable |
| False positive rate | Incorrect security alerts | < 5% |
Anti-Patterns to Avoid
- Trusting user input — All external input must be treated as potentially malicious
- Vague instructions — Ambiguous prompts lead to inconsistent security analysis
- Missing context — Insufficient context causes incorrect security decisions
- Over-permissive prompts — Broad instructions increase attack surface