A recent survey indicates that nearly a quarter of cybersecurity leaders report their organisations experienced AI-powered attacks in the past year, highlighting AI risk as a primary concern. The difficulty in distinguishing AI-driven attacks from those led by humans may lead to an underestimation of the number of AI-enabled attacks. Security experts fear the malicious use of AI, but also recognise its potential to improve cyber defences.
Examples of AI-enabled attacks include sophisticated phishing, deepfakes, voice cloning and real-time impersonation. AI can also accelerate attacks and may evolve into autonomous weapons. Securing AI agents and managing AI usage among employees are cited as key cybersecurity challenges. Many organisations are worried about hackers using AI to develop attack tools, generate cyberattack traffic, and create zero-day attacks. Despite these concerns, only a small percentage of organisations have implemented AI-driven security solutions, though many plan to do so in the coming year.
Concerns extend to resilience, regulatory compliance and the potential for data breaches. The financial impact of attacks remains high, with downtime from DDoS attacks costing significant amounts per minute. Experts predict a rise in AI-driven cyber threats, including deepfakes and ransomware, necessitating proactive AI-specific security measures.
