GenAI Emerges As Top Cybersecurity Threat For This Year, Says Report

New Delhi: As hackers devise new methods to infiltrate your devices, Generative AI (GenAI) has become the top threat this year, as cybercriminals use ChatGPT and Gemini AI models to enhance their game. The large language models (LLMs) are just the beginning of a new disruption in the hacking space.

According to Richard Addiscott, senior director analyst at Gartner, "It's important to recognize that this is only the beginning of GenAI's evolution, with many of the demos we've seen in security operations and application security showing real promise."

GenAI is occupying significant headspace for security leaders as another challenge to manage but also offers an opportunity to harness its capabilities to augment security at an operational level.

Further adding, Richard Addiscott stated, "Despite GenAI's inescapable force, leaders also continue to contend with other external factors outside their control they shouldn't ignore this year."

The inevitability of third parties experiencing cybersecurity incidents is pressuring security leaders to focus more on resilience-oriented investments and move away from front-loaded due diligence activities.

"Start by strengthening contingency plans for third-party engagements that pose the highest cybersecurity risk," said Addiscott. More than one in four organizations have banned the use of GenAI over privacy and data security risks, as a report showed last month.

According to the 'Cisco 2024 Data Privacy Benchmark Study,' most firms are limiting the use of Generative AI (GenAI) over data privacy and security issues, with 27 percent having banned its use, at least temporarily.

Among the top concerns, businesses cited the threats to an organization's legal and intellectual property rights (69 percent) and the risk of disclosure of information to the public or competitors (68 percent).