AI tops security risks for 76% of firms

Deepfakes, cloud credential theft flagged.

Three in four organisations surveyed ranked artificial intelligence as their top data security risk, according to Thales’ Data Threat Report 2026.

The report said 71% cited credential theft as the leading attack technique against cloud management infrastructure, whilst 69% said their AI applications are being targeted by attackers.

It said 53% of Singapore companies reported deepfake-driven incidents, and 46% reported reputational damage linked to AI-generated misinformation or impersonation.

On preparedness, 41% said they have specific budgets for AI security, up from 28%, whilst 43% said they are relying on existing security budgets.

The brief said only 28% of organisations know where all their data resides, 37% can fully classify it, and 48% of sensitive cloud data remains unencrypted.