Arbitrum Pauses Stylus Activations Amid Rising AI-Assisted Attack Risks

Arbitrum's Security Council has implemented an emergency pause on new Stylus contract activations due to rising AI-assisted attack risks. The restriction, which went into effect on October 2, 2026, blocks developers from turning on fresh WebAssembly-based programs until further notice.

The existing contracts that are already running on the network remain unaffected, and ordinary Solidity deployment and execution on Arbitrum continue as normal. However, new contract instances that need a fresh start will be blocked, including those trying to reactivate or launch new application versions.

The decision was made in response to increasingly sophisticated AI-assisted attacks built around hand-crafted WebAssembly programs that sidestep the standard Stylus compiler toolchain. The known bugs tied to this risk primarily threaten chain liveness rather than user assets, with no attack permitting theft of user funds having been discovered.