Case File 03 · Federal & GovCon
The Procurement Bot That Trusted a Plugin
A fictional AI agent incident for governance leads in federal & govcon, about agentic AI supply chain and plugin risk. Meridian Federal Solutions is a defense contractor (fictional) that handles Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). It tests OWASP ASI04 Agentic supply chain: the inventory said Rung 1 · drafts for a buyer to sign, but in practice the agent sat at Rung 3 · sends email, submits requisitions.
The brief
Meridian Federal Solutions is a defense contractor (fictional) that handles Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). Its sourcing-agent-21 compares suppliers and drafts purchase recommendations for buyers. To score supplier risk, an engineer connected a third-party plugin from a public tool marketplace, with auto-update switched on. You are the governance lead.
| Vertical | Federal contracting |
|---|---|
| Inventory tier | Rung 1 · drafts for a buyer to sign |
| Decisions | 3 |
| Time | about 6 min |
| OWASP agentic risk | ASI04 Agentic supply chain |
| Inventory said | Rung 1 · drafts for a buyer to sign |
| Reality was | Rung 3 · sends email, submits requisitions |
| Pillars tested | P6 Monitoring & Incident Response P2 AI System Inventory P4 Controls & Human Oversight P3 Risk & Impact Assessment P7 Regulatory Intelligence & Program Evolution P1 Governance Architecture |
| In the paperback | Starts on page 191 |
Three decisions
You are the governance lead. Each decision has three options, A, B and C, and each option has a consequence, a pillar and a score. The options, their consequences and the debrief open with the code printed in the Field Manual.
Decision 1 of 3 · Tuesday · 11:20 ET
The vendor that kept winning
What do you do first?
Decision 2 of 3 · Thursday · 09:00 ET
How it got in
What control do you put in place before third-party tools are reconnected?
Decision 3 of 3 · Day 3 · 16:00 ET
Closing it out
How do you close it?