Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) were analyzed in a recent report by Team8. The survey found that 70% of CISOs’ budgets increased in 2024 compared to 2023.

Seventy-five percent of respondents said phishing attacks pose the greatest AI-powered threat to their organization, while 56% said deepfake enhanced fraud (voice or video) poses the greatest threat.

‘Lack of expertise’ (58%) and ‘Balancing security with usability’ (56%) are the two main challenges organizations face when defending AI systems. Forty-one percent of CISOs expect to explore purchasing solutions for managing the AI development lifecycle within the next 1-2 years. Additionally, many CISOs are prioritizing solutions for third-party AI application data privacy (36%) and tools to discover and map Shadow AI usage (33%).

Data protection tops issues not adequately addressed by existing solutions: CISOs identify several critical data security concerns that currently lack adequate solutions – insider threats and next-gen DLP (65%), third-party risk management (46%), AI application security (43%), human identity management (40%), and security executive dashboards (40%)

The survey found that 54% of CISOs reported that their personal well-being has been impacted due to concern about liability, while 32% have actively taken steps to mitigate personal legal risk, through actions such as seeking legal counsel, purchasing additional insurance or adjusting their contract. Meanwhile, 54% report experiencing significantly tighter scrutiny from their superiors over the past year despite their budgets and scope increasing.