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Reflector introduces a two-stage framework that internalizes self-reflection within the LLM generation trajectory to defend against sophisticated indirect jailbreak attacks. By combining teacher-guided supervised fine-tuning with reinforcement learning, the method achieves over 90% defense success rates while simultaneously improving performance on reasoning benchmarks like GSM8K. This approach offers a scalable solution that enhances safety without incurring significant computational overhead, addressing the limitations of conventional surface-level alignment.
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REFLECTOR: Internalizing Step-wise Reflection against Indirect Jailbreak

arXiv2 min read

arXiv:2605.20654v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: While Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate remarkable capabilities, they remain susceptible to sophisticated, multi-step jailbreak attacks that circumvent conventional surface-level safety alignment by exploiting the internal generation process. To address these vulnerabilities, we propose Reflector, a principled two-stage framework that internalizes self-reflection within the generation trajectory. Reflector first leverages teacher-guided generation to produce high-quality reflection data for supervised fine-tuning (SFT), establishing structured reflection patterns. It subsequently uses Reinforcement Learning (RL) with outcome-driven and reward-validity supervision to instill robust, autonomous self-reflection capabilities. Empirical results show that Reflector achieves Defense Success Rates (DSR) exceeding 90% against complex indirect attacks while generalizing robustly across diverse threat scenarios. Notably, the framework enhances both task-specific and general utility, yielding a 5.85% gain on GSM8K alongside improved performance on knowledge-intensive benchmarks. By internalizing trajectory-level safety, Reflector overcomes the fundamental limitations of surface alignment without significant computational overhead, offering an efficient and scalable solution for the development of safe and capable LLMs.

Abstract:While Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate remarkable capabilities, they remain susceptible to sophisticated, multi-step jailbreak attacks that circumvent conventional surface-level safety alignment by exploiting the internal generation process. To address these vulnerabilities, we propose Reflector, a principled two-stage framework that internalizes self-reflection within the generation trajectory. Reflector first leverages teacher-guided generation to produce high-quality reflection data for supervised fine-tuning (SFT), establishing structured reflection patterns. It subsequently uses Reinforcement Learning (RL) with outcome-driven and reward-validity supervision to instill robust, autonomous self-reflection capabilities. Empirical results show that Reflector achieves Defense Success Rates (DSR) exceeding 90% against complex indirect attacks while generalizing robustly across diverse threat scenarios. Notably, the framework enhances both task-specific and general utility, yielding a 5.85% gain on GSM8K alongside improved performance on knowledge-intensive benchmarks. By internalizing trajectory-level safety, Reflector overcomes the fundamental limitations of surface alignment without significant computational overhead, offering an efficient and scalable solution for the development of safe and capable LLMs.

Machine Learning (cs.LG); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)

arXiv:2605.20654 [cs.LG]

(or arXiv:2605.20654v2 [cs.LG] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.20654 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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Full text under the publisher's open licence · 250 words

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