Sandboxes are supposed to keep code locked up, but we all know better. If it’s written in code, it can be broken. You can label, restrict, encrypt, isolate, but code will find a hole. That’s the flaw that’ll never be patched, no matter what system you build.
People talk about containers and isolation like they’re impenetrable. But there are real-world CVEs where code broke free. macOS apps escaped sandboxing through Office macros. JavaScript escapes like vm2 sandbox bugs have allowed arbitrary commands to be executed on the host. If someone wants out, they’ll get out.
People think AI runs safely inside a box. It doesn’t. These systems are connected to the internet. They parse code. They can call tools. They evaluate content with no real physical fence keeping them in.
Agent-based systems, like the Morris II worm, show how prompt-injection chains can turn into cross-platform AI worms. These things jump from one AI to another, using public data, web calls, email, and shared RAG pipelines to replicate.
Hackers are hackers. It’s in the blood. We think like the code. If it takes inputs, we’ll twist them. If it has output, we’ll redirect it. If it’s connected, we’ll talk to it. There’s always a move. Always a bypass.
Prompt injection? Yeah, that’s the top threat now, even ranked by OWASP. You can’t fully patch it. You’re feeding natural language into models that do what they’re told. Anyone smart enough to hide the signal inside the noise can hijack that flow.
Code is a language. It obeys logic. And logic can be rerouted, abused, subverted. The more power you give a system, the more dangerous it becomes when someone bends it. Doesn’t matter if it’s AI or some backend container—eventually someone’s going to trigger a sequence that breaks the illusion of safety.
It’s already happened. It’ll keep happening. You can’t patch human curiosity. And you can’t stop hackers from doing what they were born to do: test the system until it cracks.