Report by Object First

89% of IT Leaders Fear AI-Powered Cyberattacks Will Cost Them Their Data

9 FINDINGSPublished Mar 31, 2026
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Key Findings

73% of US IT and security professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees identify increasing backup data security as their top-ranked defense against AI-powered cyberattacks.

Backup Data SecurityAI-powered CyberattacksEnterpriseUS

62% of US IT and security professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees believe AI makes it more likely their company will need to pay a ransom to regain access to its data after an attack.

RansomwareRansomData AccessAIEnterprise

53% of US IT and security professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees are very confident they can quickly recover from an AI-driven ransomware attack.

RansomwareIncident RecoveryAI-driven Ransomware AttackEnterpriseUS

58% of US IT and security professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees use immutable backup storage across all their data.

Data ProtectionBackup StorageImmutable Backup StorageEnterpriseUS

52% of US IT and security professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees say it is harder to keep up with threats now than five years ago.

Threat LandscapeEnterpriseUS

58% of US IT and security professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees have adopted Zero Trust principles.

Zero TrustData ProtectionEnterpriseUS

31% of US IT and security professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees report their organization does not fully follow the 3-2-1 backup rule.

Backup PracticesData ResilienceEnterpriseUS

89% of US IT and security professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees say AI-powered cyberattacks make them more concerned about their organization’s data safety.

Data SecurityAI-powered CyberattackEnterpriseUS

79% of US IT and security professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees say AI-powered attacks gaining access to backups is their top concern.

Backup SecurityAI-powered CyberattackEnterpriseUS