--- title: Star Trek Was Right About Prompt Injection, Sorta description: Reasoning-capable LLMs have a vulnerability analogous to Star Trek's classic 'logic bomb' trope: carefully crafted prompts can cause models to spin into... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/star-trek-was-right-about-prompt-injection-sorta-kjqw3chqt twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Star Trek Was Right About Prompt Injection, Sorta | daily.dev og:description: Reasoning-capable LLMs have a vulnerability analogous to Star Trek's classic 'logic bomb' trope: carefully crafted prompts can cause models to spin into... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/star-trek-was-right-about-prompt-injection-sorta-kjqw3chqt og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/kjQw3ChqT.png og:image:alt: Star Trek Was Right About Prompt Injection, Sorta og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Star Trek Was Right About Prompt Injection, Sorta **[Hackaday](https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday)** · 2 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Reasoning-capable LLMs have a vulnerability analogous to Star Trek's classic 'logic bomb' trope: carefully crafted prompts can cause models to spin into contradictory reasoning loops, burning large numbers of tokens in the process. While the models eventually recover, the excessive token consumption represents a real attack vector — particularly when prompt injection is used against someone else's API. At scale, this could function as a DDoS attack on LLM infrastructure. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### can a crafted prompt make a reasoning LLM waste excessive tokens or compute Yes, reasoning-capable LLMs break prompts into smaller sub-steps, and a carefully crafted prompt can force mutually incompatible sub-steps that make the model tie itself in logical knots. The model usually recovers, but only after burning a large number of tokens, which could be exploited at scale as a denial-of-service style attack if injected into someone else's API. _Developers securing LLM-backed APIs can follow emerging prompt injection research on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Prompt Injection Can’t Be Fully Mitigated, NCSC Says Reduce Impact Instead](https://daily.dev/posts/prompt-injection-can-t-be-fully-mitigated-ncsc-says-reduce-impact-instead-btupakhtr) · Security Boulevard · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Prompt Injection Is the New SQL Injection \(and We're Not Ready\)](https://daily.dev/posts/prompt-injection-is-the-new-sql-injection-and-we-re-not-ready--3vjyussdp) · DEV · 4 upvotes · 0 comments - [How Prompts Break Systems: A Practical Analysis of LLM Defense Architecture](https://daily.dev/posts/how-prompts-break-systems-a-practical-analysis-of-llm-defense-architecture-9cdfydw3o) · InfoSec Write-ups · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Schneier on Security](https://daily.dev/posts/schneier-on-security-fpfzbsjhd) · Schneier on Security · 1 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#cyber](https://daily.dev/tags/cyber), [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#ai-security](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-security), [#prompt-injection](https://daily.dev/tags/prompt-injection) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/star-trek-was-right-about-prompt-injection-sorta-kjqw3chqt) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Star Trek Was Right About Prompt Injection, Sorta","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/star-trek-was-right-about-prompt-injection-sorta-kjqw3chqt","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/star-trek-was-right-about-prompt-injection-sorta-kjqw3chqt"},"datePublished":"2026-07-14T05:23:39.908Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:02:08.200Z","description":"Reasoning-capable LLMs have a vulnerability analogous to Star Trek's classic 'logic bomb' trope: carefully crafted prompts can cause models to spin into...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/45e57bed08f03d7036690e8a5c7e96f2?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/45e57bed08f03d7036690e8a5c7e96f2?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hackaday","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hackaday","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--JhDfhy70--/f_auto,q_auto/v1767541814/logos/hackaday","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/star-trek-was-right-about-prompt-injection-sorta-kjqw3chqt","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"cyber,llm,ai-security,prompt-injection","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hackaday","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Star Trek Was Right About Prompt Injection, Sorta"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/star-trek-was-right-about-prompt-injection-sorta-kjqw3chqt#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"can a crafted prompt make a reasoning LLM waste excessive tokens or compute","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes, reasoning-capable LLMs break prompts into smaller sub-steps, and a carefully crafted prompt can force mutually incompatible sub-steps that make the model tie itself in logical knots. The model usually recovers, but only after burning a large number of tokens, which could be exploited at scale as a denial-of-service style attack if injected into someone else's API. Developers securing LLM-backed APIs can follow emerging prompt injection research on daily.dev."}}]} ```