77 percent of companies have seen breaches in their AI

A new survey of 150 IT security and data science leaders shows that 98 percent of enterprises consider at least some of their AI models crucial to their business success, and 77 percent identified breaches to their AI in the past year.

Yet the study from HiddenLayer shows only 14 percent of IT leaders say their respective companies are planning and testing for adversarial attacks on AI models.

Companies have, on average, 1,689 AI models in production. In response, security for AI has become a priority, with 94 percent of IT leaders allocating budgets to secure their AI in 2024. But only 61 percent are highly confident in their allocation, and 92 percent are still developing a comprehensive plan for this emerging threat.

"AI is the most vulnerable technology ever to be deployed in production systems," says Chris 'Tito' Sestito, co-founder and CEO of HiddenLayer. "The rapid emergence of AI has resulted in an unprecedented technological revolution, of which every organization in the world is affected. Our first-ever AI Threat Landscape Report reveals the breadth of risks to the world’s most important technology. HiddenLayer is proud to be on the front lines of research and guidance around these threats to help organizations navigate the security for AI landscape."

The biggest cited challenges to securing AI include shadow IT with 61 percent acknowledging it as a problem within their organizations, and third-party AIs -- 89 percent express concern about security vulnerabilities associated with integrating third-party AIs, and 75 percent believe third-party AI integrations pose a greater risk than existing threats.

Recommendations for improving AI security include identifying where it's in use, carrying out risk assessments, continuous monitoring to detect anomalies and regularly assessing the robustness of AI models against adversarial attacks.

The full report is available from the HiddenLayer site.

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