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MCPSecBench: A Systematic Security Benchmark and Playground for Testing Model Context Protocols

Created by
  • Haebom

Author

Yixuan Yang, Daoyuan Wu, Yufan Chen

Outline

This paper presents a study of the security risks posed by the integration of large-scale language models (LLMs) into real-world applications via the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a universal open standard for connecting AI agents to data sources and external tools. While MCP enhances the capabilities of LLM-based agents, it also introduces new security risks and expands the attack surface. This paper presents the first systematic taxonomy of MCP security, identifying 17 attack types across four major attack surfaces. Furthermore, we introduce MCPSecBench, a comprehensive security benchmark and playground that integrates prompt datasets, MCP servers, MCP clients, attack scripts, and protection mechanisms to evaluate these attacks across three major MCP providers. Experimental results show that over 85% of the identified attacks successfully compromise at least one platform, and current protection mechanisms are largely ineffective against these attacks.

Takeaways, Limitations

Takeaways:
Identifying new security risks and attack surfaces in MCP environments.
Standardizing MCP security assessments through MCPSecBench.
Common vulnerabilities identified across major platforms, including Claude, OpenAI, and Cursor.
Identifying platform-specific variability in prompt-based and tool-driven attacks.
Presenting the current protection mechanism Limitations.
Limitations:
MCPSecBench is modular and extensible, but requires additional effort to implement new clients, servers, and transport protocols.
Experiments targeting a limited number of MCP providers (Claude, OpenAI, Cursor).
Further research is needed on the effectiveness of protection mechanisms against specific attack types.
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