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API Security Weekly: Issue 173

This week, we have news of the eye-opening vulnerability on the Coinbase platform which netted $250,000 in bug bounty. There’s also an excellent guide on best practices for authentication and authorization for REST APIs, an article on the growth of bad bots and how to mitigate against them, and a fun read from APIHandyman on how to hack the Elgato Key light API.

Vulnerability: Coinbase API Bug Allowed Unlimited Cryptocurrency Trading

This week’s major news story has been the disclosure of a major vulnerability in an API on Coinbase, a cryptocurrency trading platform. This vulnerability potentially allowed an attacker to make unlimited cryptocurrency trades between different currency accounts.

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How to Check if an IP Address is a Bot in Java

An IP address is a unique numerical identifier that is assigned to each network-connected device that uses the Internet Protocol for communication; simply put, this includes most devices we use today (i.e. laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.). For business websites, verifying user IP addresses can provide valuable insight into client-specific demographics, allowing them to effectively target their content.

However, not all IP addresses are valid – some can be a bot, botnet, or other non-user entity that can either skew your data or potentially cause harm to your business or clients. This article will explore a free solution that can check if a single IP address is a bot in Java by leveraging real-time signals against known high-probability bots. While there are some useful bots out there, such as chatbots and search engine bots, we want to ensure that there are no “bad” bots lurking in an IP address that could pose a threat.

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Creating Your Own Language Objects in Teneo

Language objects are building blocks for language conditions. Sometimes you may not find the language objects you need in the Teneo Lexical Resources (TLR), for the simple reason that they do not exist. Teneo Lexical Resources have primarily been designed to cover general language expressions and common phrases, so whenever you want to use more (domain) specific words in your dialog, you may not find existing language objects for them.

The good news is that you can easily create missing language objects yourself. Once created, you can use them in your current solution. In fact, you can re-use them in other solutions as well!

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Why Most Chatbots are Annoying and How to Make Sure Yours Isn’t

As conversational language interfaces begin to dominate customer service, so does the backlash against chatbots grow. Forrester predicted last year that 2019 would be the year of the backlash against inefficient chatbots, and it looks like they were right. For example, a survey commissioned by an open software service company Acquia, that analyzed responses from more than 5,000 consumers and 500 marketers in North America, Europe and Australia, found that 45 percent of consumers find chatbots “annoying.”

At the same time, the importance of conversational AI for business today cannot be overestimated. When done right, conversational AI has the ability to significantly increase your competitive advantage and fundamentally change the nature of business-customer interaction.

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Zombie Bots Are Killing RPA ROI

Watch out for Zombie bots!


If you’re using a script-based RPA solution, there’s a good chance that “zombie bots” are silently killing your RPA success. They’re munching away at your resources without adding value. Learning how to spot them and turn them around is one of the most powerful — yet often overlooked — ways to maximize your RPA ROI.

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4 Chatbots Security Measures You Absolutely Need to Consider

It will come as no surprise that chatbots are everywhere and they are here to stay! In fact, 80 percent of companies want to have some type of chatbot implemented by 2020.

Chatbots are our friendly assistants that make life easier by helping us book flights, appointments, shop, get answers to our questions, etc. They also allow companies to lower the cost in customer service and have their customer support agents attending to more complex situations.

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The State of AI in 2019: Top 5 Trends to Watch Out For

Artificial Intelligence will continue to be a hot topic of discussion in 2019. It’s getting attention from start-ups, enterprises, vendors, media, research firms, and government institution to name a few. They are all trying to achieve and improve its bottom line using AI. The coming year is going to be a crucial year in the establishment of new AI applications and the growth of existing ones. Here’s a look at the top 5 trends that I would want to emphasize on.

  1. AI Workspaces: AI and related technologies are increasingly being used across workplace environments. Although this will continue to grow, we are likely to witness standardization in terms of both functional and non-functional aspects of technology adoption. With standardization, we can expect an increase in intelligent interactions between humans and technology in a natural setting leading to intelligent collaboration, more productivity, and efficiency in workspaces. The use of AI capabilities in healthcare and Financial industry is expected to take the industry to the next level.