With cyber threats evolving at an alarming pace, solution providers must constantly rethink their security strategies to safeguard critical data for customers. According to Hitachi Vantara’s State of Data Infrastructure Global Report 2024,securing data is now the top priority for IT leaders, with 48% identifying it as the key to successful AI implementation.
The Growing Security Threat from AI
AI is not just a tool for innovation—it has become a weapon for cybercriminals. Approximately 41% of IT leaders now cite AI-enabled cyberattacks as their greatest security concern, surpassing even internal threats from employee mistakes. The stakes are incredibly high: 74% of IT leaders say that losing their data due to an attack or mistake would be catastrophic to their business. For industries handling highly sensitive information, such as healthcare (88%) and finance (84%), the risk is even greater.
It’s clear that the cybersecurity landscape is shifting. While insider threats were the top concern in 2023, IT leaders now fear AI itself could cause security issues, whether through malicious attacks or unintended consequences. In the report, 35% of IT leaders express concerns that AI mistakes could lead to irrecoverable data loss, with 30% fearing accidental AI-driven data breaches.
Striking a Balance: AI Security and Data Governance
With AI becoming deeply embedded in business operations, organizations must rethink their data governance strategies. AI models have access to vast amounts of data, making security breaches more damaging than ever before. Additionally, the ability to track, control, and, if necessary, rewind AI training data is critical to maintaining data integrity and compliance.
Generative AI is also creating a whole new layer of security issues, as it crawls through dark data, and data sources that IT leaders might not have full control over. A poor dataset can taint data, but perhaps more concerning is good data that contains personal, sensitive or proprietary information.
Hitachi Vantara’s report emphasizes the importance of securing AI models and their training data to prevent unauthorized access or contamination. Without tight control and visibility, organizations may find themselves exposed to compliance violations, loss of intellectual property, and reputation damage.
Four Ways to Fortify Defenses
The demand for robust security solutions is greater than ever, and solution providers have a unique opportunity to support businesses in securing their AI-driven infrastructure. The Hitachi Vantara report lists these four critical best practices to help fortify defenses:
1. Create and implement effective policies. As staff are trained to follow technology policies, it becomes more important to ensure those policies are modernized and up to date. As AI touches more areas of the organization, bring in diverse cross-departmental resources to build robust policies and procedures for the organization.
2. Implement strong AI governance across all layers of risk. Establish cross-functional AI governance committees, including security, legal, compliance, and risk management teams. This ensures that AI-driven initiatives align with regulatory requirements and security best practices.
3. Reduce complexity in data infrastructure. Managing hybrid environments across public, private, on-premises, and multi-cloud infrastructures is a major challenge. Simplifying and unifying these environments helps reduce vulnerabilities and improves security posture.
4. Leverage AI for cyber defense. AI is a double-edged sword—it poses risks but also offers security solutions. 33% of IT leaders now use AI to identify risks, detect anomalies, and strengthen cybersecurity defenses. Solution providers should help organizations integrate AI-driven security measures to counter emerging threats effectively.
Understanding the evolving threat landscape is critical to staying ahead of cybercriminals. Get this comprehensive Hitachi Vantara report to help navigate AI security risks and implement cutting-edge data protection strategies.
Download the full State of Data Infrastructure Global Report from Hitachi Vantara.
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