The BOHH Breakdown, Part 9: The Rise of Chatbots and How BOHH Helps you Use Them Securely

In our last post, we looked at several ways companies can increase their potential to prevent data breaches. This week will be addressing the rise in popularity of chat bots and how BOHH supports the security of them. 

Bots (chat bots) are quickly becoming the interface of choice for many organizations and individuals (particularly the younger generation), as they are an invaluable way that people, computers and IoT devices can access and update information on demand. 
While bot technology has been around for some time now, there are several reasons why we are seeing a major uptick in their use.

First, the core technology that powers bots is improving dramatically and enables computers to process language and converse with humans in ways they never could before. The advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) is making it possible for bots to better understand users’ needs and how to complete them.

Additionally, the way we communicate has changed drastically – gone are the days where in-person visits, phone calls and even emails are the primary services for companies to engage with customers. Instead, people today demand conversational (voice) rather than browsing (keyboard) services that integrate into their digitally connected lives and offer them 24/7 interaction from anywhere at any time. One of the major appeals of bots for organizations is that they are a cheaper and faster method to serve and reach their customers like never before and offer more on-demand services that often results in cost savings for a more streamlined experience. Bots are not replacing customer services teams, but complimenting them by improving customer satisfaction (Net Promoter Score) indicators.  It also supports organizations’ objectives of providing greater customer self-service, especially when user’s will make swifter decisions to move from one provider to another if customer service is poor.

As such, we are beginning to see a major uptick in companies integrating bots services into their business and customer engagement strategies. However, while bots offer many advantages, current bot solutions are NOT secure and leave a new door open to malicious attacks as they provide direct access to an organizations’ network, applications and databases. 

By not addressing these security implications, companies are at risk of jeopardizing confidential data, as well as revenue from malicious attacks. At BOHH Labs, we believe that digital and technology advancements should not come at the expense of enterprise security. So, to help prevent attacks that are opened from bot services, BOHH’s approach to bots secures beyond what the market currently offers today, and ensures that the data request is validated before gaining authorized access to a backend system or application. The BOHH Bot Security Service separates out the requestor from the request and securely allows the request to navigate to whatever end-point is required. This leaves the requestor waiting until the response has been collected and checked before moving it forward and returning the request to the requestor. 

We do this in a number of ways, but mainly with our AI and NLP engines, which manage the data transaction process – the AI engine looks at and cleans any unwanted traffic, while the NLP engine takes the incoming message and determines where it should be sent – meaning the user can use plain text with no command languages. Together, these two technologies can separate, recognize and maintain a secure connection to many different systems and prevent any third parties from trying to hop on the connection and get to the backend database.

All of this is done in real time (hundredths of a second), so there is no disruption to the user experience, just the confidence that their transaction/request is secure.

Now that we’ve highlighted why bots usage among companies is on the rise and how BOHH helps enhance bot security, check back in next Tuesday when we take a look at IoT security.