25 cybersecurity AI stats you should know

In this article, you will find excerpts from reports we recently covered, which offer stats and insights into the challenges and cybersecurity issues arising from the expansion of AI.

Security pros are cautiously optimistic about AI

Cloud Security Alliance and Google Cloud | The State of AI and Security Survey Report | April 2024

• 55% of organizations plan to adopt GenAI solutions within this year, signaling a substantial surge in GenAI integration.
• 48% of professionals expressed confidence in their organization’s ability to execute a strategy for leveraging AI in security.
• 12% of security professionals believe AI will completely replace their role.

AI abuse and misinformation campaigns threaten financial institutions

FS-ISAC | Navigating Cyber 2024 | March 2024

• Threat actors are expected to launch misinformation campaigns and DDoS attacks against critical infrastructure, capitalizing on ongoing geopolitical conflicts and a “super election” year, as five national elections take place across the globe.
• DDoS attacks are continuing to increase in size, scope, and sophistication, with 35% of all DDoS attacks targeting the financial services sector in 2023.

Enterprises increasingly block AI transactions over security concerns

Zscaler | AI Security Report 2024 | March 2024

• Today, enterprises block 18.5% of all AI transactions, a 577% increase from April to January, for a total of more than 2.6 billion blocked transactions.
• Some of the most popular AI tools are also the most blocked. Indeed, ChatGPT holds the distinction of being both the most-used and most-blocked AI application.

Scammers exploit tax season anxiety with AI tools

McAfee | Tax Scams Study 2024 | March 2024

• Of the people who clicked on fraudulent links from supposed tax services, 68% lost money. Among those, 29% lost more than $2,500, and 17% lost more than $10,000.
• 9% of Americans feel confident in their ability to spot deepfake videos or recognize AI-generated audio, such as fake renditions of IRS agents.

Advanced AI, analytics, and automation are vital to tackle tech stack complexity

Dynatrace | The state of observability 2024 | March 2024

• 97% of technology leaders find traditional AIOps models are unable to tackle the data overload.
• 88% of organizations say the complexity of their technology stack has increased in the past 12 months, and 51% say it will continue to increase.
• 72% of organizations have adopted AIOps to reduce the complexity of managing their multicloud environment.

Today’s biggest AI security challenges

HiddenLayer | AI Threat Landscape Report 2024 | March 2024

• 98% of companies surveyed view some of their AI models as vital for business success, and 77% have experienced breaches in their AI systems over the past year.
• 61% of IT leaders acknowledge shadow AI, solutions that are not officially known or under the control of the IT department, as a problem within their organizations.

AI tools put companies at risk of data exfiltration

Code42 | Annual Data Exposure Report 2024 | March 2024

• Since 2021, there has been a 28% average increase in monthly insider-driven data exposure, loss, leak, and theft events.
• While 99% of companies have data protection solutions in place, 78% of cybersecurity leaders admit they’ve still had sensitive data breached, leaked, or exposed.

95% believe LLMs making phishing detection more challenging

LastPass | LastPass survey 2024 | March 2024

• More than 95% of respondents believe dynamic content through Large Language Models (LLMs) makes detecting phishing attempts more challenging.
• Phishing will remain the top social engineering threat to businesses throughout 2024, surpassing other threats like business email compromise, vishing, smishing or baiting.

How AI is reshaping the cybersecurity job landscape

ISC2 | AI Cyber 2024 | February 2024

• 88% of cybersecurity professionals believe that AI will significantly impact their jobs, now or in the near future, and 35% have already witnessed its effects.
• 75% of respondents are moderately to extremely concerned that AI will be used for cyberattacks or other malicious activities.
• The survey revealed that 12% of respondents said their organizations had blocked all access to generative AI tools in the workplace.

Businesses banning or limiting use of GenAI over privacy risks

Cisco | Cisco 2024 Data Privacy Benchmark Study | February 2024

• 63% have established limitations on what data can be entered, 61% have limits on which employees can use GenAI tools, and 27% said their organization had banned GenAI applications altogether for the time being.
• Despite the costs and requirements privacy laws may impose on organizations, 80% of respondents said privacy laws have positively impacted them, and only 6% said the impact has been negative.
• 91% of organizations recognize they need to do more to reassure their customers that their data was being used only for intended and legitimate purposes in AI.

Unlocking GenAI’s full potential through work reinvention

Accenture | Work, workforce, workers: Reinvented in the age of generative AI | January 2024

• While 95% of workers see value in working with GenAI, 60% are also concerned about job loss, stress and burnout.
• 47% of reinventors are already thinking bigger—recognizing that their processes will require significant change to fully leverage GenAI.

Adversaries exploit trends, target popular GenAI apps

Netskope | Cloud and Threat Report 2024 | January 2024

• In 2023, ChatGPT was the most popular generative AI application, accounting for 7% of enterprise usage.
• Half of all enterprise users interact with between 11 and 33 cloud apps each month, with the top 1% using more than 96 apps per month.