Red-Bandit: Test-Time Adaptation for LLM Red-Teaming via Bandit-Guided LoRA Experts

Abstract

Automated red-teaming has emerged as a scalable approach for auditing Large Language Models (LLMs) prior to deployment, yet existing approaches lack mechanisms to efficiently adapt to model-specific vulnerabilities at inference. We introduce Red-Bandit, a red-teaming framework that adapts online to identify and exploit model failure modes under distinct attack styles (e.g., manipulation, slang). Red-Bandit post-trains a set of parameter-efficient LoRA experts, each specialized for a particular attack style, using reinforcement learning that rewards the generation of unsafe prompts via a rule-based safety model. At inference, a multi-armed bandit policy dynamically selects among these attack-style experts based on the target model's response safety, balancing exploration and exploitation. Red-Bandit achieves state-of-the-art results on AdvBench under sufficient exploration (ASR@10), while producing more human-readable prompts (lower perplexity). Moreover, Red-Bandit's bandit policy serves as a diagnostic tool for uncovering model-specific vulnerabilities by indicating which attack styles most effectively elicit unsafe behaviors.