🧔♂️ A friendly human may check it before it goes live. More news here
71% of APAC firms see AI as top data security risk: report
Thales’ 2026 Data Threat Report, based on research by S&P Global 451 Research, found 71% of Asia Pacific organisations name AI their top data security risk as AI gains broad automated access to enterprise data.
Only 35% of Asia Pacific firms know where all their data resides, 40% can fully classify it, and 47% of sensitive cloud data remains unencrypted.
Credential theft leads attacks on cloud management infrastructure in Asia Pacific at 69%, compared to 67% globally, while Hong Kong reports lower credential theft at 44% but higher third-party and API risks at 67%.
Nearly 60% reported deepfake-driven incidents and 50% reputational harm from AI-generated misinformation, with India higher at 65% and 55% respectively.
Just 31% of Asia Pacific firms dedicate specific budgets to AI security, while 51% still rely on existing security programmes built for human users.
The report urges organisations to improve data visibility, identity governance, and encryption to prevent AI becoming an insider threat.
🔗 Source: Thales
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
The struggle is global and budgets get squeezed
- Asia Pacific faces the same data tracking and funding headaches seen worldwide.
- Across the world, 34% of organizations know where all their data sits, while 30% set aside a dedicated AI security budget. These figures track closely with Asia Pacific results 1.
- In Singapore, 54% of respondents said AI security spend comes out of existing security budgets, which forces tradeoffs for security leaders 2.
- In the same market, 69% said locking down cloud infrastructure is harder than protecting on-premises systems (company-run hardware and software in their own facilities). The average Singapore enterprise also runs 77 Software as a Service (SaaS) applications 2.
AI’s insider threat paradox helps drive a $60.6 billion market
- These gaps open a large sales opportunity, with the global AI in cybersecurity market forecast to rise from $22.4 billion in 2023 to $60.6 billion by 2028 3.
- In Asia Pacific, one research provider puts the AI security market at $3 billion, naming Huawei and Palo Alto Networks among the leading vendors 4.
- A tension remains. AI gets broad automated access to enterprise data, which makes it feel like a new insider threat. Yet one brake on adoption is that AI security tools are not widely used to spot insider threats 3.
- That pattern suggests firms add powerful internal agents before security tooling catches up with the older, human-driven risk.
Stay updated on the go with our mobile app.
Get latest insights with smoother, more personalized experience through TIA mobile app.