31 Aug 2023
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned UK businesses about the risks cyber chatbots pose to firms.
Officials from the NCSC said that cyber experts do not yet fully understand the potential risks digital algorithms that create human-sounding interactions, or large language models (LLMs), may pose to businesses.
Chatbots make use of AI to aid in providing customer services and making sales calls on behalf of firms. However, the NCSC warned that using chatbots could carry 'unforeseen risks' when they are linked to businesses' internal processes and networks.
It warned that AI chatbots could be manipulated into taking rogue commands, which may lead to rises in cases of fraud and data breaches.
The NCSC stated: 'Organisations building services that use LLMs need to be careful, in the same way they would be if they were using a product or code library that was in beta.
'They might not let that product be involved in making transactions on the customer's behalf, and hopefully wouldn't fully trust it. Similar caution should apply to LLMs.'