In October, one in every 44 GenAI prompts submitted from enterprise networks posed a high risk of data leakage, impacting 87 percent of organizations that use GenAI regularly.
A study from Check Point Research finds an additional 19 percent of prompts contained potentially sensitive information such as internal communications, customer data, or proprietary code. These risks coincide with an eight percent increase in average daily GenAI usage among corporate users.
The report also finds that organizations worldwide each faced an average of 1,938 cyberattacks per week. This represents a two percent increase from September and a five percent rise year-over-year, reflecting a continued escalation in global cyber threats driven by ransomware expansion and risks linked to GenAI.
The education sector remains the most targeted globally, averaging 4,470 weekly attacks per organisation (up five percent YoY). The telecommunications industry followed with 2,583 weekly attacks (up two percent YoY), while government institutions faced 2,550 attacks per week (down two percent YoY), reflecting ongoing targeting of critical services and data-rich environments. There’s also been a 40 percent YoY increase in attacks on the hospitality sector, as we near the holiday season, moving up from eighth to fifth in the top attacked industries this month.
Ransomware remains one of the most damaging cyber threats, with 801 publicly reported incidents globally in October, marking a 48 percent YoY increase. North America accounted for 62 percent of all reported cases, followed by Europe (19 percent). The US alone represents 57 percent of global incidents.
Omer Dembinsky, data research manager at Check Point Research, says, “October’s data shows that along with the overall number of attacks climbing, the real concern is in the eventual results shown for example in the surge of successful Ransomware attacks. In addition, the risks of data exposure via Generative AI and other means threaten to provide the attackers with additional tools to carry out future attacks. This evolution creates new challenges for defenders. The only effective approach is prevention-first, powered by real-time AI and proactive threat intelligence to block attacks before they cause damage.”
You can read more and get the full report on the Check Point blog.
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