As AI-related cyber-crime becomes more prevalent, a growing body of evidence suggests that businesses are paying the price for being underprepared, with a new study from Clutch finding that almost three-quarters of firms have been hit by cyber-attack.

After polling more than 400 small business owners and managers, the business services platform found that 73% of firms have suffered a cyber incident, with 55% of those occurring within the past year alone.

The dramatic rise in cyber-crime heralded by AI has left the majority (77%) of business leaders concerned about keeping up with the threat landscape, and has resulted in 83% of firms planning to invest in their cybersecurity over the next twelve months.

Fears around AI are swelling security budgets, with firms growing worried that the technology will rapidly increase the volume and speed of attacks (18%) and make their traditional security tools obsolete (16%). The main fear, however, is that AI will result in ultra-realistic phishing and deepfakes (49%), deceptive content that could make employees more vulnerable.

Despite that, only half (50%) of respondents said that they plan to invest in employee training to support this investment, even though human-centred security gaps are routinely found to be among the biggest threats. 

That could prove to be a costly decision, with Clutch finding that business email compromise (61%) and phishing (59%) were among the top attack vectors over the last year.

More businesses are instead focusing their cybersecurity investments on technical defences like new software and tools (56%), better policies (53%), and cyber audits and assessments (51%).

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But while firms are looking to the latest tech as a line of defence, there is a dearth of specialists to make it work. Clutch found that in spite of all the worry and investment ploughed into security, more than one in five (21%) of companies either don’t have a technical team member or don’t have anyone managing cybersecurity at all.

Partly, this lack of expertise is due to a misconception that smaller businesses are less at risk. Clutch found that although 58% of companies with fewer than 200 employees have faced a cyber-attack, 13% of these small businesses still believe they’re less vulnerable

“Cyber-criminals are leaning on AI to scale attacks and make them more effective, and businesses of all sizes are at risk,” concludes the report.

“Yet, through employee training, security audits, and new tools, many businesses are able to quickly respond to cyber incidents and even prevent them from happening. If you are looking to strengthen your business’s cybersecurity, but don’t have the budget for an internal team, external IT services can help you reduce vulnerabilities.”