- Zscaler warns that enterprise AI systems can be affected in less than two hours
- AI adoption increases 91% annually, with massive corporate data flowing into GenAI tools
- Researchers Urge AI-Powered Zero Trust Defenses Against Machine-Speed Attacks
The risks of incorporating AI tools into business processes without being fully aware of potential security issues could be much greater than everyone thinks, new research says.
Zscaler found that many companies can experience a breach in less than two hours, and after that, they could lose their sensitive data in a matter of minutes.
“When enterprise AI systems are tested in real adverse conditions, they break almost immediately,” the researchers said, noting how, in controlled scans, they were able to find critical vulnerabilities in less than 90 minutes for the majority of the systems tested (90%). The average time to the first critical failure was 16 minutes, and in most extreme cases, defenses were bypassed in a single second.
Autonomous attacks at machine speed
Despite the bleak outlook, AI is being introduced into the enterprise at breakneck speeds. AI and ML activity increased 91% year over year, across an ecosystem of more than 3,400 applications.
Finance and Insurance remains the most AI-driven sector by volume, accounting for almost a quarter (23%) of all AI and ML traffic. Technology and education, on the other hand, increased enormously in use, 202% and 184%, respectively.
Enterprise data transfers to AI applications increased 93% year-on-year and reached 18,033 terabytes.
The massive influx of data has transformed tools like Grammarly (3,615 TB) and ChatGPT (2,021 TB) into “the most concentrated repositories of corporate intelligence in the world,” it said.
However, companies do not pay attention to security. Many organizations “lack a basic inventory of active AI models and integrated functions, leaving them unable to know exactly where sensitive data is exposed.”
“AI is no longer just a productivity tool, but a primary vector for machine-speed autonomous attacks by both crimeware and nation-states,” said Deepen Desai, executive vice president of cybersecurity at Zscaler.
“In the era of agent AI, an intrusion can go from discovery to lateral movement to data theft in minutes, rendering traditional defenses obsolete. To win this race, organizations must fight AI by implementing an intelligent Zero Trust architecture that closes potential paths for attackers of all types.”
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