When your AI chatbot does more than chat: The security of tool usage by LLMs

It is common for companies to have some kind of large language model (LLM) application exposed in their public-facing systems, often as a chatbot. LLMs usually have access to additional tools and MCP servers to call external systems or perform specialized operations. These tools are an underestimated yet critical part of the attack surface and can be exploited by attackers to compromise the application via the LLM.