Manufacturing Security Professionals Concerned About Employee Use of AI Agents

New data from Darktrace’s State of AI Cybersecurity survey shows that 78% of manufacturing security professionals are worried about employee use of AI agents; in fact, it’s their top concern.

What’s more, security teams have sensitive data exposure (a worry for 60%) and accidental policy and regulatory violations (59%) on their minds.

Key takeaways:

·        76% are already being impacted by AI-powered threats and 90% see AI increasing the success of social engineering attacks.

·        Concerns across the manufacturing sector show growing anxiety about the range of AI-powered attack routes, most pressingly of adaptive malware that evolves in real-time, a prospect half (49%) of manufacturing security professionals are worried by, a full 9% more than the average across industries.

• This is followed by automated vulnerability scanning and exploit chaining (48%), and hyper-personalized phishing campaigns (46%).
• Despite rising awareness, more than half (51%) say they are not adequately prepared for AI-driven threats, and only 37% have formal policies governing AI deployment.  
• Research found that 91% of manufacturing security professionals said that they need to understand how AI makes decisions before trusting it.