Chat Assistant Credential Mediation for Secure API Calls
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Solution Overview
Problem
The sharing of credentials for accessing application programming interfaces (APIs) with chatbot assistants poses a security risk due to the potential exposure of credentials when hosted on private and third-party, non-trusted systems.
Innovation Solution
A device intercepts user credentials to prevent their sharing with chatbots, providing an instruction that they are locally available, and makes API calls using those credentials, ensuring secure communication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If user credentials are shared with chatbot assistants to enable API calls, then the chatbot can perform tasks requiring authentication, but security risks increase due to potential exposure of credentials on third-party systems
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary component that sits between the user credentials and the chatbot assistant. This intermediary receives credential requests from the chatbot, validates them, and returns appropriate responses without exposing the actual credentials to the chatbot. This mediator architecture enables the chatbot to perform authenticated API calls while preventing direct credential exposure to third-party systems.
2Reliability
If credentials are stored locally on the user's device, then security is improved by preventing external exposure, but the chatbot cannot directly access them for API calls
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by establishing secure credential storage on the user's device before any chatbot interactions occur. The intermediary component is pre-configured to communicate with the local credential storage, enabling it to retrieve and validate credentials on-demand without requiring direct chatbot access to the stored credentials. This preliminary setup maintains security while enabling operational functionality.
Data Source
AI summary
In one implementation, a device receives a request from a chatbot for user credentials needed to perform an application programming interface call. The device prevents the user credentials from being provided to the chatbot in response to the request. The device provides an instruction to the chatbot indicative of the user credentials not being shared because they are locally available. The device makes the application programming interface call based on an output of the chatbot and using the user credentials.