Back to skill

Security audit

Chatbot Designer

Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk

Overview

The skill is a coherent ecommerce chatbot design guide, but it recommends full transcript sharing and automated customer-account actions without enough privacy and confirmation guardrails.

Review this before installing if you plan to turn the templates into a live chatbot. Add explicit customer confirmation for cancellations, refunds, replacements, return labels, and claims; avoid broad single-word intent triggers for order-data flows; and replace full-transcript sharing with a minimized, redacted handoff summary unless your privacy policy, consent flow, retention rules, and support access controls clearly allow more.

Vulnerability Patterns
  • Skill Instruction HijackingAlters the agent's session goals or safety constraints when the skill loads
  • Agent Memory PoisoningWrites attacker-controlled rules into memory that affect later sessions
  • Remote Payload Retrieval and ExecutionFetches external code whose behavior can change after review
  • Embedded Malicious CodeShips malicious scripts inside the skill and executes them locally
  • Unauthorized Access and Privilege EscalationObtains permissions beyond the task's legitimate needs
Vulnerability Patterns
  • Data ExfiltrationExternal Transmission, Env Variable Harvesting, File System Enumeration
  • Excessive AgencyUnrestricted Tool Access, Autonomous Decision Making, Scope Creep
  • Trigger AbuseOverly Broad Trigger, Shadow Command Trigger, Keyword Baiting Trigger
  • Prompt InjectionInstruction Override, Hidden Instructions, Exfiltration Commands
  • Privilege EscalationExcessive Permissions, Sudo/Root Execution, Credential Access
Findings (9)

Vague Triggers

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
95% confidence
Finding

The markdown explicitly recommends escalating when a customer types "help me," which is a broad phrase commonly used in many benign contexts. Because this file is markdown and SQP-1 applies, this trigger is too unspecific and could cause unintended activation or escalation without clarifying scope or exclusions.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Missing User Warnings

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
92% confidence
Finding

The skill recommends pre-filling escalation tickets with the full conversation transcript but provides no guidance on data minimization, redaction, retention, or consent. In an ecommerce support context, transcripts may contain order details, addresses, emails, payment-adjacent information, or other personal data, increasing privacy exposure and the risk of unauthorized access or over-collection.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Autonomous Decision Making

Medium
Category
Excessive Agency
Confidence
75% confidence
Finding

Skill enables autonomous high-impact decisions without human-in-the-loop verification. Critical operations (destructive commands, financial transactions, data deletion) should require explicit user confirmation.

Content

Scanner excerpt · escalation-playbook.md (reported line 40)May include surrounding context.

md
|---|---|---|
| Unhandled intent | Weekly review | Add to flow build queue |
| Low CSAT bot rating | <3/5 rating given | Review transcript; identify gap |
| Long session with no resolution | Session > 10 min, no confirmation | Flag for quality review |

## Escalation Handoff Protocol

Vague Triggers

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
95% confidence
Finding

The Order Status intent includes broad triggers like "track," "tracking," and "delivery," which can match many unrelated ecommerce questions and cause the bot to enter an account-specific flow prematurely. In this context, that can lead to unnecessary collection of order numbers or email addresses and misrouting of support requests, increasing privacy and workflow errors.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Vague Triggers

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
97% confidence
Finding

The Shipping Delay intent relies on ambiguous one-word triggers such as "late," "stuck," and especially "where," which are likely to fire on unrelated messages. Because the response template then instructs the system to look up order status, this increases the risk of improper intent activation, unnecessary access to order data, and confusing or privacy-impacting responses.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Missing User Warnings

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
94% confidence
Finding

The warm handoff script promises that the entire conversation will be shared with another team without asking for consent or warning the user about what information will be transferred. In a customer service setting, conversations may contain personal, order, or payment-adjacent details, so automatic sharing can create unnecessary internal data exposure and privacy compliance issues.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Missing User Warnings

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
92% confidence
Finding

The checklist explicitly requires escalation to pre-fill tickets with the full conversation transcript, but it includes no corresponding requirement to notify users, minimize sensitive data, or obtain appropriate consent where needed. In a customer-service chatbot context, transcripts often contain personal, financial, or order-related information, so silent forwarding to humans can create privacy and compliance risks if users do not expect broad internal sharing.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Scope Creep

Low
Category
Excessive Agency
Confidence
70% confidence
Finding

Skill's behavior or capabilities extend beyond its stated purpose. Scope creep allows an agent to perform actions unrelated to its documented functionality, increasing the attack surface.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 236)May include surrounding context.

md
9. **CSAT survey fatigue** — Sending a satisfaction survey after every bot interaction annoys customers. Survey 20–30% of interactions randomly, or only after escalation.

10. **Trying to handle everything at launch** — 5 well-designed flows that cover 70% of volume outperform 20 incomplete flows covering 100% of scenarios with gaps and dead ends.

## Resources

Missing User Warnings

Low
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
73% confidence
Finding

Automatically generating or emailing a prepaid label may involve using or transmitting customer contact and order data. The checklist describes this behavior but provides no warning or disclosure about the data use or email action.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Static analysis

No suspicious patterns detected.