Securing the Introduction of AI on Your E-Commerce Website
With the rise of digital engagement, users are increasingly favoring a conversational agent integrated directly into e-commerce platforms. Studies show that 80% of e-commerce businesses already use or plan to deploy chatbots to assist their customers. According to Gartner, 85% of customer interactions could be handled by AI by 2025. These tools can drive:
▪️ 36% of product recommendations via chatbot
▪️ 20% reduction in cart abandonment
▪️ 70% higher customer engagement through conversational assistants
Risks and Threats
Introducing AI chatbots on e-commerce sites, while improving the customer experience, also creates new risk vectors:
1️⃣ Data leakage: storage of logs and personal data with potential for exfiltration or exposure
2️⃣ Prompt-injection attacks that allow an attacker to influence the AI’s behavior
3️⃣ Malicious use: creation of fake chatbots or phishing via smishing, deepfakes, disinformation campaigns
4️⃣ False sense of trust: users may inadvertently share sensitive information
The Thales Response: Reasserting Control Over Your AI Assets
To help e-commerce players secure and govern their AI initiatives, Thales offers full control of the AI lifecycle - from asset management to cyber risk management - through:
1️⃣ Inventory & Classification of AI Assets
📌 Regain governance over integrated AI models (chatbots, recommendation engines, etc.)
📌 Leverage Watsonx.governance to centralize and inventory all models, pipelines, and dependencies
2️⃣ Analysis of AI Risks & Threats
📌 Identify front-end applications at risk of manipulation (via prompt injection, RAG attacks, etc.)
📌 Evaluate compromise scenarios—exfiltration, response tampering, code injection - using Guardium AI Security
3️⃣ Implementing Security Controls
📌 Secure proxy & prompt filtering: safeguard the chatbot entry point via Watsonx.governance
📌 Continuous model monitoring: detect AI anomalies (prompt injection, statistical drift) using Guardium
📌 Access management & logging: ensure traceability of requests and actions, and audit all changes
4️⃣ Testing, Validation & Hardening
📌 Simulate AI attack scenarios (e.g., malicious injection, chatbot-driven phishing)
📌 Run endurance and regression tests covering paraphrasing, filter bypass, and code injection
5️⃣ Governance & Compliance
📌 Define and enforce AI policies in line with GDPR, NIS2, etc.
📌 Automate reporting on usage, access and incidents
📌 Establish a periodic review cycle for AI models and their risk profiles
This comprehensive framework lets e-commerce businesses fully leverage AI’s advantages while securing their platforms and protecting customer data.
