​​​Flexential Survey of Enterprise IT Leaders Reveals AI Creating New Cybersecurity and Resilience Challenges

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – September 9, 2024 – Flexential, a leading provider of secure and flexible data center solutions, unveiled new insights from its 2024 State of AI Infrastructure Report, revealing growing concern among IT leaders about the cybersecurity risks associated with AI investments. 

The findings are based on a survey of 350 IT leaders at organizations with over $100 million in annual revenue, including 100 respondents at organizations with over $2 billion in annual revenue. The survey suggests that organizations must address multiple challenges related to cybersecurity and data protection to achieve their AI objectives, indicating the increased need for proactive disaster recovery planning, resilient infrastructure design and testing, and an emphasis on reliable uptime to ensure secure, scalable, and high-performant AI deployments. 

Flexential’s survey found that nearly all IT leaders (95%) believe that their organization’s increased investment in AI has made them more vulnerable to cyberthreats. Shockingly, 40% of respondents said their cybersecurity teams don’t understand how to protect AI applications and workloads. 

Additionally, 42% of organizations have strategically shifted AI applications and workloads away from the public cloud to colocation environments. This move, driven by heightened data privacy and security concerns, indicates a cautious approach among enterprises. By opting for colocation, they are ensuring tighter control over sensitive data within on-premise or third-party data centers and private clouds. 

“As AI becomes more embedded into business processes, it’s clear that enterprises need help safeguarding their organization’s critical data as well as educating and up-skilling their entire staff,” said Jason Carolan, Chief Innovation Officer at Flexential. “Our report findings reinforce the importance of resilient and secure IT infrastructure solutions that can reduce vulnerability while supporting the high-performance demands of AI workloads. Organizations need the right internal and external partners and experts in place to help them account for these risks and alleviate the pressure on their already stretched IT teams.” 

Other notable findings from Flexential’s report include: 

• Over half (54%) of respondents stated that the complexity of AI applications creates a larger, inherently more vulnerable attack surface for their organizations. 
• Due to AI investments, 39% of IT leaders claimed they are storing and processing more sensitive data than before. 
• Around half of respondents (51%) noted their AI investments have led them to move where they store sensitive data, such as closer to the edge of the network, increasing their organizations’ cybersecurity vulnerability. 

“As AI use increases across sectors and business functions, so do the risks that can jeopardize business operations if not properly addressed,” said Will Bass, VP of Cybersecurity Services at Flexential. “In response, enterprises need to have robust disaster recovery strategies that go beyond basic protection measures. This includes building resiliency into every layer of IT infrastructure, rigorously testing disaster recovery plans, and ensuring uptime while also enhancing detection and response capabilities. By embedding these practices into the infrastructure solutions handling AI deployments from the start, enterprises can avoid disruptions and keep their AI projects on track.” 

Visit flexential.com to access the full 2024 State of AI Infrastructure Report. 

Flexential will be onsite at DRJ Fall 2024! Visit booth 304 to learn more about the report findings and discover how your organization can enhance disaster recovery planning to ensure enterprise resilience in the age of AI. Flexential’s Will Bass, VP of Cybersecurity Services and Mark Leyda, Cloud & Data Protection Specialist, will also be presenting at DRJ Fall on how to team up with your IT organization for business continuity success. 

For more information on Flexential, visit: www.flexential.com. 

About Flexential: 

 Flexential empowers the IT journey of the most complex businesses by offering customizable IT solutions designed for today's demanding high-density computing requirements. With colocation, cloud, connectivity, data protection, and professional services, the FlexAnywhere® platform anchors our services in 42 data centers across 19 highly connected markets on a 100Gbps private network backbone. Flexential solutions are strategically engineered to meet the most stringent challenges in security, compliance, and resiliency. Experience the power of IT flexibility and how we enable digital transformation at www.flexential.com.