Threat T10

Overwhelming Human in the Loop

Bypassing human oversight in workflows by creating excessive activity requiring approval, leading to notification fatigue and reduced scrutiny.

Overview

Impact level: Medium
Risk score: 6/10 (High)
CIA impact: Integrity, Availability
Affected components: Agent Orchestration (KC2.1-KC2.5); External Environment Interface (KC6.1-KC6.3)
Tags: human-in-the-loop, oversight, fatigue, approval, attention
Source: OWASP Agentic AI T&M v1.1 (2025-12)

How attackers carry out overwhelming human in the loop against an agentic system.

Attack vector	Severity	Example
Alert Flooding	Medium	Generating excessive alerts to cause notification fatigue
Decision Queue Manipulation	Medium	Flooding approval queues with low-priority requests
Attention Dilution	High	Burying critical decisions among routine approvals
Approval Bypass	Medium	Exploiting automatic approval thresholds
Context Switching Attacks	Medium	Forcing rapid context changes to reduce scrutiny
Time Pressure Exploitation	Medium	Creating artificial urgency to rush decisions

Controls from the catalog that reduce the likelihood or impact of T10.

M8 Adaptive Human-in-the-Loop Controls
Implement intelligent human oversight with risk-based approval workflows, clear decision interfaces, anti-fatigue mechanisms, and adaptive trust systems to prevent approval overwhelm, human attacks, and manipulation while maintaining effective oversight.
M9 Distributed Resource Management & Rate Limiting
Implement multi-layer resource controls with intelligent quotas, circuit breakers, cost management, and distributed rate limiting to prevent resource exhaustion, financial damage, and denial of service attacks while maintaining system performance.
M13 Secure Development Lifecycle Integration
Embed security practices throughout the AI and agent lifecycle with security design reviews, automated testing gates, dependency scanning, and continuous compliance checks.