A recent survey by Thales reveals that around 70% of organisations in India consider the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem as the primary GenAI-related security concern. This is followed by worries about lack of integrity (66%) and trustworthiness (55%).
The findings are part of the 2025 Thales Data Threat Report, which highlights the growing influence of artificial intelligence, particularly Generative AI (GenAI). These technologies rely on large volumes of high-quality, often sensitive data for tasks such as training, inference, and generating content.
The report draws from a global survey conducted by S&P Global Market Intelligence 451 Research. Over 3,100 IT and security professionals from 20 countries across 15 different industries participated in the study.
“The fast-evolving GenAI landscape is pressuring enterprises to move quickly, sometimes at the cost of caution, even as they race to stay ahead of the adoption curve,” said Eric Hanselman, Chief Analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence 451 Research.
“Many enterprises are deploying GenAI faster than they can fully understand their application architectures, compounded by the rapid spread of SaaS (Software as a Service) tools embedding GenAI capabilities, adding layers of complexity and risk,” Hanselman added.
Although data breaches continue to be a concern, the overall frequency has declined slightly in recent years. In 2021, 56% of global enterprises reported experiencing a breach, whereas in 2025, the number has dropped to 45%. The proportion of respondents who reported a breach within the past 12 months also decreased from 23% in 2021 to 14% in 2025. In India specifically, 11% of respondents said they had experienced a data breach recently.
On a global scale, malware remains the most common threat since 2021. Phishing has now overtaken ransomware to become the second most reported threat. In terms of threat actors, external sources continue to dominate, with hacktivists ranked as the top concern, followed by nation-state actors. Human error, while still important, has moved down to third place from second the previous year.
While the survey indicates some progress in data security measures, Thales concluded that significant improvements are still necessary. The company noted that further enhancement of operational data security is essential to support the advanced capabilities of emerging technologies like GenAI and to enable future technological progress.
