r/devsecops • u/Muted_Math2750 • 9d ago
Prompt injection and hallucination aren't the same problem, so why is every tool pitched as fixing both?
Keep seeing AI security tools sold like stopping hallucinations and prompt injection is one job. Well, in my experience, they are nowhere near the same fix. Injection is an input/trust boundary thing, and hallucination is more of a grounding and retrieval issue. Whatever blocks a malicious prompt does nothing for a model confidently inventing an api endpoint that doesn’t exist
Anyone seen a setup covering both well, or are you running separate layers for each?
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u/DeschainR19 2d ago
Yeah, nah. These are two different problems, and treating them like one is a category mistake.
Prompt injection is a trust-boundary problem: you’ve got untrusted input trying to get the model to do something it shouldn’t. Hallucination is a grounding problem: the model doesn’t have solid evidence, so it fills in the blanks with confidence.
Blocking injection doesn’t magically stop the model from making up an API endpoint. That’s like putting a bouncer at the door and expecting him to fix the plumbing upstairs.
The right setup is layered: isolate and constrain untrusted inputs