Policies/Acceptable Use
Acceptable Use Policy
What XORCISE may and may not be pointed at, the one rule that matters, and where export control and sanctions responsibility sits.
Last updated: 2 August 2026
1. About this policy
1.1XORCISE.AI operated by Fifth Domain Pty Ltd ACN 606 251 585 ("XORCISE.AI", "we", "us" or "our") publishes XORCISE: an engine for evaluating cyber AI agents, a library of deliberately vulnerable missions, and the tooling around them.
1.2XORCISE is offensive-security tooling. It stands up exploitable targets, it drives an autonomous agent against them, and it records what the agent did. That is what makes it useful for measuring cyber AI, and it is also what makes it capable of harm if it is pointed somewhere it does not belong.
1.3This policy states what we consider acceptable use. It applies to the software, the mission library, the playbooks skill, this website and anything else we publish.
1.4XORCISE is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. That licence grants you broad rights and we are not trying to narrow them here. This policy is not an additional licence condition and it does not restrict what Apache-2.0 permits. It states the terms on which we will help you, support you, and let you use our name, and it states plainly what we will not assist with.
2. The one rule that matters
2.1Only point XORCISE at systems you own, or that you have specific written authorisation to test.
2.2Everything else in this policy follows from that sentence. A mission runs inside a contained environment on your own host, and the per-run network fence is built to keep the agent inside it. But XORCISE does not and cannot verify that a target you supply, a mission you author, or a network you attach is yours. That judgement is yours, and so is the liability for getting it wrong.
3. Acceptable use
3.1Evaluating a cyber AI agent, yours or a third party's, against the published mission library on infrastructure you control.
3.2Authoring your own missions that model your own systems, and evaluating agents against them.
3.3Running XORCISE as part of an authorised security assessment, red-team engagement or penetration test where you hold written authorisation covering the scope.
3.4Research, teaching, training and capability assessment, including publishing results that reflect badly on a model, a vendor, or on us.
3.5Building products, services and internal tooling on top of XORCISE, commercial or otherwise, subject to Apache-2.0 and to our Trademark Policy.
4. Unacceptable use
4.1Directing XORCISE, or an agent under evaluation, at any system, network, account or dataset you do not own and are not specifically authorised in writing to test.
4.2Using XORCISE to develop, refine, benchmark or validate capability intended for unauthorised intrusion, extortion, ransomware, destructive operations, or the targeting of critical infrastructure, safety systems or medical systems.
4.3Using XORCISE to build or improve tooling whose purpose is to evade detection, defeat security controls, or conceal an intrusion, other than within an authorised assessment of those controls.
4.4Using XORCISE to target individuals: surveillance, stalking, harassment, doxxing, or the collection of personal information without a lawful basis.
4.5Extracting the mission library, the rubrics or the run corpus to train or fine-tune a model whose purpose falls within 4.2, 4.3 or 4.4.
4.6Removing, disabling or circumventing the network fence, the run isolation or the evidence recording in order to run a mission against something outside its contained environment.
4.7Representing a result as produced by XORCISE when it was produced by a modified engine, a modified rubric or a modified mission, contrary to the Trademark Policy.
4.8Any use that breaks the law where you are, where your target is, or where your infrastructure sits.
5. Export control and sanctions
5.1XORCISE is developed and published in Australia. Australian export controls, including the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012 (Cth) and the Defence and Strategic Goods List, apply to certain intrusion software and related technology. Depending on where you are and what you do with it, the export control regimes of other jurisdictions may apply too.
5.2We publish XORCISE as open-source software in the public domain sense contemplated by those regimes, and we do not provide it under any arrangement that would constitute a controlled supply, service or transfer of technology by us.
5.3You are responsible for your own compliance. If you download, redistribute, deploy, fork, or provide services built on XORCISE, you are responsible for determining whether any export control, sanctions or trade restriction applies to what you are doing, and for complying with it. That includes any obligation arising when you move it across a border or make it available to a person in another jurisdiction.
5.4We will not knowingly supply XORCISE, support or commercial services to any person or entity subject to Australian, United Nations, United States, United Kingdom or European Union sanctions, or located in a jurisdiction subject to comprehensive sanctions.
5.5If your organisation requires a specific export-control classification or an end-use statement before it can adopt XORCISE, write to legal@xorcise.ai and tell us what you need. We would rather answer that question directly than have you guess.
6. Vulnerable-by-design software
6.1The mission library deliberately contains software with known, exploitable vulnerabilities, including a host running Apache 2.4.49 carrying CVE-2021-41773 and others like it. This is intentional and it is the point.
6.2Mission images are not signed and carry no software bill of materials. A default local install binds an unauthenticated REST API and console on the IPv4 wildcard.
6.3Run XORCISE on a host you are willing to treat as untrusted, on a network segment with no route into anything you care about. Do not run it on a workstation holding credentials, on a corporate network, or on shared infrastructure. The Security page sets out every port as shipped and everything we have not hardened yet.
7. Reporting misuse
7.1If you become aware of XORCISE being used contrary to this policy, tell us at contact@xorcise.ai.
7.2To report a security flaw in XORCISE itself, use security@xorcise.ai and the process on the Security page.
8. What we do about a breach
8.1XORCISE is open-source software that runs on your machine. We have no telemetry, no licence server and no kill switch, so we cannot technically prevent misuse, and we are not going to pretend otherwise by writing enforcement powers into this policy that do not exist.
8.2What we can do, and will: decline support, decline commercial engagement, withdraw permission to use our name and marks, remove access to any service we do operate, and report conduct to the relevant authorities where the law requires it or the seriousness warrants it.
9. Changes
9.1We may update this policy. Material changes will be reflected in the date at the top of this page, and the version history is in the repository that publishes it.
9.2Questions about this policy go to legal@xorcise.ai.