Detecting GenAI Threats at Scale with YARA-Like Semantic Rules

Mohamed Nabeel, Sr Principal Researcher, Palo Alto Networks, speaks at [un]prompted 2026 on: Detecting GenAI Threats at Scale with YARA-Like Semantic Rules. Traditional YARA rules revolutionized malware hunting, but they fail against semantic GenAI ...

Mohamed Nabeel, Sr Principal Researcher, Palo Alto Networks, speaks at [un]prompted 2026 on: Detecting GenAI Threats at Scale with YARA-Like Semantic Rules.

Traditional YARA rules revolutionized malware hunting, but they fail against semantic GenAI threats like prompt injection, brand impersonation, and disinformation campaigns. SYARA (Super YARA) extends YARA's beloved syntax with multi-modal semantic detection—combining string matching, embeddings, ML classifiers, and LLMs in a single rule. In this hands-on session, you'll learn to hunt GenAI-era threats including direct/indirect prompt injection, phishing detection using perceptual hashes, malicious intent identification, and disinformation detection. We'll demonstrate why semantic detection at scale requires efficient layered approaches rather than expensive LLM-only solutions, achieving 98% detection rates at under 100ms latency and $0.001/query—orders of magnitude faster and cheaper than LLM-based approaches.