Gartner Survey Reveals GenAI Attacks Are on the Rise

Twenty-nine percent of cybersecurity leaders said their organizations experienced an attack on enterprise GenAI application infrastructure in the last 12 months, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company.

The survey was conducted from March-May 2025 among 302 cybersecurity leaders in North America, EMEA and Asia/Pacific.

The survey found that 62% of organizations experienced a deepfake attack involving social engineering or exploiting automated processes, while 32% said they experienced an attack on AI applications that leveraged the application prompt in the last 12 months (see Figure 1). Chatbot assistants are vulnerable to a variety of adversarial prompting techniques, such as attackers generating prompts to manipulate large language models (LLMs) or multimodal models into generating biased or malicious output.

Expert Take:

During the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit in London, Akif Khan, VP Analyst at Gartner said: “As adoption accelerates, attacks leveraging GenAI for phishing, deepfakes and social engineering have become mainstream, while other threats — such as attacks on GenAI application infrastructure and prompt-based manipulations — are emerging and gaining traction.”

While 67% of cybersecurity leaders said emerging GenAI risks demand significant changes to existing cybersecurity approaches, Gartner said a more balanced strategy is warranted. “Rather than making sweeping changes or isolated investments, organizations should strengthen core controls and implement targeted measures for each new risk category,” said Khan.

Gartner clients can read more in Data View: What Is the Impact of GenAI on the Attack Landscape? Learn how to maximize AI’s value while managing critical risks with the complimentary ebook AI in Cybersecurity: Minimize Risks and Maximize Impact.

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