
Seven in ten companies to use GenAI for cyber defence
Business and tech leaders rank digital and tech top for risks they are prioritising for mitigation – nearly twice as high as natural disasters, pandemic, and inequality. 69% say their organisation will use GenAI for cyber defence in the next 12 months, a new survey from consultancy PwC shows. Another survey says more than half of companies in the US have increased investment in generative AI during the last ten months.
45% in the US are in piloting mode with generative AI, and another 10% have put generative AI solutions into production. A significant increase from March and April when only 15% of respondents were piloting generative AI and 4% were in production, the survey by market research firm Gartner shows.
The PwC report says cyber budgets in 2024 are increasing, and at a higher rate compared to last year.
“PwC cybersecurity specialists do not expect GenAI to lead to a surge in ‘catastrophic’ cyber attacks — contrary to the majority of respondents (52%) who said that such attacks could happen within the next year.”
Cyber attacks on healthcare 25% more costly than other industries, the PwC report says.
“The proportion of businesses that have experienced a data breach of more than US$1M has increased significantly from year over year by a third – from 27% to 36%.”
The survey of 3,800 business and tech leaders across 71 countries, also finds that companies are viewing the rise of Generative AI with a mixture of scepticism and excitement, and many are bulking up investments in cybersecurity to protect against cyberattacks.
64% said they have increased their sales revenue in the past year, while 82% expect to increase revenue over the next year. 79% expect cyber budgets to increase – up from 65% in 2023.
“Organisations who show greater maturity in their cybersecurity initiatives, report a greater number of benefits and a lower incidence of costly cyber breach of USD$1M, or a breach at all”, the PwC says.
“While businesses that have experienced a data breach have increased since PwC’s 2023 survey, the healthcare industry has been the most impacted. The global average cost of a damaging cyber-attack was reported to be $4.4M, while in the healthcare sector that cost was 25% higher –$5.3 million. Nearly half (47%) of all healthcare organisation’s respondents reported a data breach of $1M or greater.”
“Among business and tech leaders, there is increasing concern over the rise of Generative AI as it relates to cybersecurity. Another surge in cyber threats may be coming because GenAI can help create advanced business email compromise at scale.”
“52% expect GenAI to lead to catastrophic cyber attacks in the next 12 months. Nearly eight in 10 (77%) agreed they intend to use GenAI in an ethical and responsible manner.”
Three quarters of business and tech leaders expressed excitement about the potential of Generative AI:
77% agreed that “Generative AI will help the organisation develop new lines of business within the next three years;
74% agreed employees’ personal use of Generative AI will lead to tangible increases in their productivity within the next 12 months;
75% agreed generative AI-driven processes within an organisation will increase employee’s productivity within the next 12 months.
PwC says that despite the continued increase in climate change-related natural disasters, ongoing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and rising inequality, business and tech leaders ranked digital and tech as the top risks they are prioritising for mitigation over the next 12 months.
“The top three cyber-related threats reported are: cloud-related threats, attacks on connected devices, and hack-and-leak operations. Despite this, more than one-third of companies haven’t instituted risk management efforts, and only one-in-four have made cyber-resilience improvements.”
The Gartner survey shows 55% of organisations have increased investment in generative AI since it surged into the public domain ten months ago.
78% of respondents believe that the benefits of generative AI outweigh its risks, up from 68% in the earlier poll.
The poll says that 45% of enterprises are scaling generative AI investments across multiple business functions, with 22% scaling across more than three different functions. Software development is the function with the highest rate of adoption or investment in generative AI, followed closely by marketing and customer service.
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