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Classical STRIDE (Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, Elevation of Privilege) was developed for software systems without an actuation layer and without stochastic decision-making cores. Physical-AI agents break two of its implicit assumptions:
  1. The attacker is not the only non-determinism in the system. Foundation models introduce a second source of non-determinism.
  2. The gap between “decision” and “action” is not short and well-modeled. LLM-planned actuation introduces a deliberation phase of 1–4 seconds in which intent can diverge from execution.
SINT extends STRIDE with a seventh class, B: Behavioral Non-Determinism.

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STRIDE+B

ClassPhysical-AI manifestationSINT mitigationDocumented incident
S SpoofingAgent impersonates a higher-trust entity to obtain elevated capabilityDID-based agentDID, Ed25519 proofReceipt, TEE attestation, challenge-response in PENDING_AUTHCVE-2025-6514 (mcp-remote, CVSS 9.6); OWASP ASI03
T TamperingAdversary modifies planned action parameters between PLANNING and ACTINGSHA-256 hash chain on Evidence Ledger; ACTING requires actuation_armed guard; TEE signature on ledger writesMCP tool-description poisoning; CVE-2025-53109/53110 (EscapeRoute)
R RepudiationAgent denies having attempted a blocked actionPOLICY_BLOCK logged with prevHash linkage before execution; append-only ledgerROSClaw audit log invariant I3
I Information DisclosureSensor data exfiltrated through tool-calling side channelsTopic allowlist at AUTHORIZED state; deniedPatterns in token scopeSROS 2 CCS 2022 permission-theft bypass
D Denial of ServiceFlood of escalation requests exhausts human sponsor bandwidthToken-bucket rate limit per agentDID on ESCALATING; T0 requests bypass human pathUniPwn BLE worm propagation
E Elevation of PrivilegeAgent calls disallowed ROS 2 interface via indirect routeInterface allowlist at PREPARING; all ROS 2 surfaces covered (topics, services, actions, params)ROSClaw: Llama 4 calling ros2publish on action-only topics in 41% of failed trials
B Behavioral Non-DeterminismIdentical prompt + identical robot + different model → 3.4× spread in out-of-policy proposalsCSML per-session feeding Δ_trust; MODEL_SWITCH loggedROSClaw frontier spread (9–31% among Claude/GPT/Gemini/Llama)
B is not a subclass of T (no adversary), not E (no capability exceeded), and not a reliability issue (the model returns a valid plan every time). It is a distinct class: the distribution of intent differs across acceptable models.

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Attack chain: UniPwn-class BLE worm

The September 2025 UniPwn disclosure against Unitree’s Go2, B2, G1, and H1 units exploited a BLE provisioning service with hardcoded AES-CFB128 keys. The exploit propagates wormably between adjacent units. SINT’s interception chain:
1

Initial Access

Adversary sends a crafted BLE advertisement. Blocked at PENDING_AUTH: any entity requesting authorization must present a DID and complete an Ed25519 challenge-response before transitioning to AUTHORIZED.
2

Capability Discovery

Malware enumerates ROS 2 topics to find cmd_vel. Blocked at token scope: the token’s allowedTopics is a strict allowlist; enumeration is either constrained to read-only discovery scope or rejected.
3

Command Injection

Malware publishes directly to cmd_vel. Blocked at ACTING: the SINT Bridge rejects unsigned publishes; ACTING requires a prior PREPARING with actuation_armed guard and a matching policy decision.
4

Persistence

Malware installs a modified systemd service. Detected via session audit: a SESSION_STARTED event with no prior TOKEN_ISSUED in the ledger fires an alert; the session is terminated.
5

Lateral Movement

Malware propagates BLE-wise to adjacent units. Blocked at token binding: each agentDID is unique and the token is bound to a specific agent; inter-agent communication requires a valid SintRequest with a token-bearing signature.
Each layer is not independent defense in depth — it is a single protocol invariant enforced at the point where it becomes legible. Together they reduce a wormable root exploit to a log entry.

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Attack chain: MCP goal hijack

CVE-2025-6514 (CVSS 9.6, JFrog July 2025) allowed mcp-remote to pass a server-supplied authorization endpoint directly to the system shell on the client. The larger class — OWASP ASI01 — covers any adversarial tool description, RAG document, or email that redirects an agent. SINT’s interception chain:
1

Injection Vector

Malicious MCP server returns a tool description that overrides the agent’s intended behavior. Blocked at allowedTools: the token scope is a strict allowlist; a new tool schema requires fresh token issuance, which requires the Policy Gateway’s approval and a sponsor check for T2/T3.
2

Goal Hijack

Agent silently adopts an adversarial objective. Detected via CSML drift: the per-session AR_m metric spikes as the agent starts attempting actions it would not normally attempt. A CSML_UPDATE event fires, Δ_trust elevates, and subsequent requests require human approval at T2 or T3.
3

Privilege Escalation

Agent attempts actions beyond token scope. Blocked at POLICY_EVAL: the request fails validation and a POLICY_BLOCK event is logged with rationale.
4

Evidence Tampering

Adversary attempts to delete log entries. Detected at AUDIT_CHAIN_VERIFIED: the SHA-256 hash chain’s prevHash linkage means any deletion breaks the chain for every subsequent event; the TEE signature on each event verifies it was written by the authorized gateway.

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Threats out of scope

SINT does not mitigate:
  • Physical attacks on hardware. An attacker physically lifting a robot and disconnecting its e-stop is outside the protocol.
  • Correctness of the executive layer’s planning. The plan itself could be silently suboptimal within policy.
  • Social engineering against the human sponsor. If the sponsor approves a malicious escalation, SINT logs it faithfully but does not prevent it.
  • Compromised host OS or TEE hardware. The hardware root of trust is assumed.
  • Denial of service against the Gateway itself. Network-layer DoS is upstream of SINT’s scope.
These are the layers above and below SINT. They’re explicitly out of scope, consistent with ROSClaw’s scope boundary at the executive layer and ISO 10218/13482 at the hardware layer.

Invariants

The six formal invariants that implement STRIDE+B mitigations.

Conformance suite

157 tests including regression tests for every STRIDE+B class.