Applications' Invisible Dangers: Unveiling the Threats Posed by Chatbots and APIs
In a recent cybersecurity incident, a recruitment chatbot exhibited unusual behavior on June 20, 2025. The organization affected by this incident, however, remains unnamed in search results. The incident is reminiscent of cybersecurity platforms like Aikido or companies such as Stellar Cyber, which specialise in AI-driven security and detection of vulnerabilities in code and infrastructure.
Despite the lack of specific identification, the incident highlights the growing concern of vulnerabilities in web applications, APIs, and AI workloads. This is backed by the Verizon 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, which found that web applications remain the most common vector for breaches.
To address these challenges, organisations can focus on comprehensive discovery, ongoing risk assessment, risk-based prioritisation, automated remediation at scale, and proactive monitoring. One company offering such a solution is Qualys.
Qualys offers a proactive security platform that surfaces issues like IDOR vulnerabilities, poor password hygiene, and misconfigured API endpoints early. Their TotalAppSec applies deep learning through Web Malware Detection to spot exploit attempts with up to 99% accuracy, even in zero-day scenarios.
Moreover, Qualys offers purpose-built API security testing to detect OWASP API Top 10 vulnerabilities, sensitive data exposure, misconfigurations, non-conformance to Open API Specifications, and hard-to-find issues like broken object level authorization (BOLA).
The incident in question involved a legacy web application, inactive since 2019, that was publicly accessible and unpatched. An insecure direct object reference (IDOR) vulnerability allowed researchers to access other applicants' personal data, while an exposed API allowed interaction with user conversations through parameter manipulation.
Weak credential hygiene provided a pathway to the underlying system, including access to candidate data. A compromised admin device introduced malware into the environment, leading to the incident.
Qualys offers automated prioritisation of vulnerabilities based on asset criticality and real-world threat context. They also integrate with over 25+ threat intelligence feeds to gather key indicators such as exploit availability, CISA due dates, associated malware, and active attacker activity.
Qualys Detection Score (QDS) and TruRiskTM Score are used to calculate vulnerability-level and asset-level risk, respectively. The company also offers comprehensive security testing for web applications, covering the OWASP Top 10, as well as detection of sensitive data leakage, misconfigurations, and insecure authentication.
In addition, Qualys offers LLM-specific security testing, tailored to detect risks such as prompt injection, hallucination, misinformation, denial-of-service (DoS), knowledge base abuse, and other threats unique to AI/LLM workloads. TotalAppSec unifies application security from code to runtime.
The incident serves as a reminder that vulnerabilities in web apps, APIs, and AI workloads are on the rise, especially where automation, microservices, and legacy systems intersect. Organisations must be vigilant and proactive in their approach to cybersecurity to minimise the risk of such incidents.
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