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Chatbots could be used to steal data, says cybersecurity agency

The UK’s cybersecurity agency has warned that there is an increasing risk that chatbots could be manipulated by hackers.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has said that individuals could manipulate the prompts of chatbots, which run on artificial intelligence by creating a language model and give answers to questions by users, through “prompt injection” attacks that would make them behave in an unintended manner.

The point of a chatbot is to mimic human-like conversations, which it has been trained to do through scraping large amounts of data. Commonly used in online banking or online shopping, chatbots are generally designed to handle simple requests.

Large language models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s AI chatbot Bard, are trained using data that generates human-like responses to user prompts. Since chatbots are used to pass data to third-party applications and services, the NCSC has said that risks from malicious “prompt injection” will grow.

For instance, if a user inputs a statement or question that a language model is not familiar with, or if they find a combination of words to override the model’s original script or prompts, the user can cause the model to perform unintended actions.

Such inputs could cause a chatbot to generate offensive content or reveal confidential information in a system that accepts unchecked input.

According to the NCSC, prompt injection attacks can also cause real world consequences, if systems are not designed with security. The vulnerability of chatbots and the ease with which prompts can be manipulated could cause attacks, scams and data theft. The large language models are increasingly used to pass data to third-party applications and services, meaning the risks from malicious prompt injection will grow.

The NCSC said: “Prompt injection and data poisoning attacks can be extremely difficult to detect and mitigate. However, no model exists in isolation, so what we can do is design the whole system with security in mind.”

The NCSC said that cyber-attacks caused by artificial intelligence and machine learning that leaves systems vulnerable can be mitigated through designing for security and understanding the attack techniques that exploit “inherent vulnerabilities” in machine learning algorithm.

Adapted from: The Guardian, Wednesday 30 August 2023, page 4.

Two US banks collapse 

Last week, Silicon Valley Bank failed, and it left customers in a tough spot as the government took ______ 1 . 

The so-called bank run happened because there ______ 2 news that the bank couldn’t meet its deposit obligations. It means that it had invested the money in various things that weren’t making the money back. Typically, that’s the point where the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, ______ 3 insures deposits ______ 4 250,000 dollars, comes in. However, 98% of Silicon Valley Bank customers didn’t have 250,000 dollars but billions of dollars. The government announced that it would step in and secure the depositors, with US president Joe Biden ______ 5 that the US banking system was safe. 

Shortly after the fall of Silicon Valley Bank, regulators closed New York-based Signature Bank, too, citing systemic risk. Experts said that these stories would continue repeating themselves because many corporations were overleveraged in dollar debt.

After the collapse, European banks lost 100 billion dollars in value in a week, and despite tough regulations that should make a similar banking failure in Europe unlikely, the contagion is accelerating.

Source: https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/two-usbanks-collapse-level-3/

Text III 

Alice Walker (born February 9, 1944), an American novelist, short story writer, poet,

and social activist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walker)

We Alone

We alone can devalue gold

by not caring

if it falls or rises

in the marketplace.

Wherever there is gold

there is a chain, you know,

and if your chain

is gold

so much the worse

for you.

Feathers, shells

and sea-shaped stones

are all as rare.

This could be our revolution:

to love what is plentiful

as much as

what's scarce.

From: https://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/we_alone_23191

TEXTI –

Pandemic Language Teaching: insights from Brazilian and international teachers on the pivot to emergency remote instruction

(Sevilla-Pavon, A.; Finardi, K. R.)

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on the experiences of language teachers from Brazil, Spain, France, Cyprus, Costa Rica and Taiwan during the pivot to emergency remote/online instruction during the 2020 pandemic. The research question motivating the study was what language teachers' perceptions regarding online teaching during the pandemic were. Data were analyzed qualitatively, contrasting data from a questionnaire shared in an asynchronous online form with data from focus group interviews carried out via videoconferencing. The analysis of the questionnaire data showed that the vast majority of respondents used different digital technologies to teach online, both synchronously and asynchronously, but felt unprepared to work in this modality, mostly because of lack of institutional support and training. The analysis of the focus group interviews suggested that most teachers expressed concerns as to the limitations of online teaching for interaction and exams. In addition, some teachers displayed negative attitudes towards online teaching due to the lack of preparation and institutional support. This was aggravated by political implications of migrating to online education that could result in precariousness of the teacher profession. The positive aspects highlighted were the possibility of developing more self-directed and autonomous learning, as well as experimenting with different technologies and approaches. Overall, the analysis of the data suggests that, after the pandemic and with due preparation and support, some of the digital technologies and approaches experimented with will be incorporated into pedagogical practices in blended approaches, which represent a real trend and possibility for language teaching in the post-pandemic context.

Keywords: Online Language Teaching and Learning; Covid-19 pandemic; teachers' perceptions; Education & Educational Research; Linguistics. th

(Available at: https://pesquisa.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/resource/pt/covidwho-1614384. Accessed on April 6 , 2022).

Answer question according to TEXTI.