Recently I watched an ethical hacker demonstrate something fascinating. He visited a company’s website that had an AI chatbot designed to help customers with basic questions. On the surface everything looked normal. The chatbot answered product questions, guided users to relevant pages, and appeared to be doing exactly what it was designed to do.
But instead of asking typical questions, the hacker began carefully crafting prompts to understand how the chatbot worked behind the scenes. Within minutes the chatbot started revealing information it should never have exposed. Internal instructions appeared, references to internal documentation surfaced, and the conversation began exposing details about how the system operated.
The website had not been hacked in the traditional sense. No malware was installed and no firewall was breached. The attacker simply manipulated the AI through conversation.
A New Type of Cybersecurity Threat
This technique is known as prompt injection. It involves crafting prompts that cause an AI system to ignore its intended behaviour or reveal information it should not disclose.
Many AI chatbots are connected to internal resources such as CRMs, internal documentation, or support systems so they can provide better answers to users. However, if permissions are not configured properly, attackers may attempt to manipulate the chatbot into revealing parts of this information. Even small pieces of internal data can give attackers insight into how a company’s systems and processes work.
The AI itself is not malicious. The risk arises when the chatbot has access to information that should not be shared to the public.
AI Is Creating a New Attack Surface
As more organizations use AI tools on their websites, security professionals are beginning to recognize AI systems as a new cybersecurity attack surface.
Traditional security strategies focus on protecting networks and applications, but AI introduces a different challenge because it interacts directly with users through natural language. This means attackers can attempt to exploit systems simply through the way they phrase their requests.
For organizations adopting AI quickly, this is an important risk that is often overlooked.
Why Vulnerability Testing Matters
Companies regularly conduct penetration tests on their networks and websites, yet very few are testing whether their AI chatbots could be manipulated to expose sensitive information. Understanding what your AI systems can access, what they might reveal, and whether they can be manipulated is becoming an important part of modern cybersecurity.
At Siyaxhuma Solutions, we help organizations conduct AI vulnerability assessments to determine whether their use of chatbots and AI integrations could expose internal data or create security risks.
If your organisation is currently using AI chatbots or large language models on your website, it may be worth conducting a vulnerability test to ensure these systems are not unintentionally exposing sensitive information.
Because sometimes the biggest cybersecurity risks don’t start with sophisticated hacking tools.
Sometimes they start with a simple conversation…
