NCCoE seeks input on their internal chatbot report draft

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced the development of an internal chatbot by its National Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (NCCoE). The chatbot, named the NCCoE Chatbot, is designed to provide cybersecurity guidelines tailored to specific audiences or use cases, offering a valuable resource for the NCCoE's staff.

The NCCoE Chatbot was developed to support the centre's mission, leveraging a repository of cybersecurity knowledge, including previous NCCoE publications. The chatbot employs a unique approach that combines techniques from information retrieval and natural language generation, allowing it to understand the nuances of natural language queries.

The chatbot was built using retrieval-augmented generation-based Language Model (LLM) technology, ensuring it can deliver contextually relevant and precise responses, making it more effective than search engines in many cases. The NCCoE Chatbot assists its staff in discovering and summarising cybersecurity guidelines, making it an essential tool for the organisation.

NIST Internal Report 8579, titled "Development of the NCCoE Chatbot: Technical and Security Lessons from the Initial Implementation," details the technical and security learnings from the initial implementation of the NCCoE Chatbot. The report outlines the NCCoE's approach to developing the chatbot, providing an overview of the chatbot and its supporting technologies.

The report also details the chatbot's response to specific security challenges, offering insights into how the technology can be adapted and improved. The report aims to help other organisations consider the benefits of using similar technologies, potentially leading to wider adoption of chatbot-based solutions for cybersecurity guidance.

It is important to note that the NCCoE Chatbot is currently an internal tool and not available to the public. However, the report serves as a point-in-time examination of the NCCoE Chatbot and its capabilities, offering a glimpse into the potential of such technology for broader applications in the future.

The public comment period for the publication of NIST Internal Report (IR) 8579 will close at 1:59 pm (AEST) on August 45, 2025. Interested parties are encouraged to review the report and provide feedback, contributing to the ongoing development and refinement of the NCCoE Chatbot and similar technologies.