cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/40764285
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Anxiety is growing among Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) in security operation centres, particularly around Chinese AI giant DeepSeek.
AI was heralded as a new dawn for business efficiency and innovation, but for the people on the front lines of corporate defence, it’s casting some very long and dark shadows.
Four in five (81%) UK CISOs believe the Chinese AI chatbot requires urgent regulation from the government. They fear that without swift intervention, the tool could become the catalyst for a full-scale national cyber crisis.
This isn’t speculative unease; it’s a direct response to a technology whose data handling practices and potential for misuse are raising alarm bells at the highest levels of enterprise security.
The findings, commissioned by Absolute Security for its UK Resilience Risk Index Report, are based on a poll of 250 CISOs at large UK organisations. The data suggests that the theoretical threat of AI has now landed firmly on the CISO’s desk, and their reactions have been decisive.
In what would have been almost unthinkable a couple of years ago, over a third (34%) of these security leaders have already implemented outright bans on AI tools due to cybersecurity concerns. A similar number, 30 percent, have already pulled the plug on specific AI deployments within their organisations.
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Three out of five (60%) CISOs predict a direct increase in cyberattacks as a result of DeepSeek’s proliferation. An identical proportion reports that the technology is already tangling their privacy and governance frameworks, making an already difficult job almost impossible.
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Businesses recognise the immense potential of AI and are actively investing to adopt it safely. In fact, 84 percent of organisations are making the hiring of AI specialists a priority for 2025.
This investment extends to the very top of the corporate ladder. 80 percent of companies have committed to AI training at the C-suite level. The strategy appears to be a dual-pronged approach: upskill the workforce to understand and manage the technology, and bring in the specialised talent needed to navigate its complexities.
The hope – and it is a hope, if not a prayer – is that building a strong internal foundation of AI expertise can act as a counterbalance to the escalating external threats.
The message from the UK’s security leadership is clear: they do not want to block AI innovation, but to enable it to proceed safely. To do that, they require a stronger partnership with the government.
The path forward involves establishing clear rules of engagement, government oversight, a pipeline of skilled AI professionals, and a coherent national strategy for managing the potential security risks posed by DeepSeek and the next generation of powerful AI tools that will inevitably follow.
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