Implementation guide
OWASP AISVS v1.01
Orchestration & Agentic Security · Shutdown and Graceful Degradation
Block actions whose approval times out
Verify that when a human-approval gate is not satisfied within the defined approval time, the system blocks the pending action.
OWASP AISVS v1.01, requirement 9.6.2
In plain English
If nobody approves a pending action within the set time, block it. Silence must never count as approval. An attacker can time a request for when no approver is around.
What good looks like
- Every approval request has a defined time limit.
- When the limit passes, the action is blocked and the request is closed.
- The agent is told the action did not happen, and the event is logged.
- A late approval for an expired request is refused.
How teams usually do it
- An expiry time on each approval request, enforced by the gateway.
- Escalation to a second approver before expiry for time-sensitive actions.
- A new request, with fresh review, if the action is still wanted after expiry.
Suggested evidence
- Timeout configuration.
- A test of an expired approval, showing the action is blocked and a late approval rejected.
Common mistakes
- Proceeding by default after a timeout.
- No timeout at all, so stale requests sit ready for someone to approve by mistake days later.
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Requirement text from the OWASP AI Security Verification Standard, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This guidance is shared under the same licence.