AI is Supercharging Cloud Attacks—And Security Teams Can’t Keep Up

The accelerating adoption of enterprise AI is triggering an unprecedented rise in cloud security risks. To help organizations understand and respond to these emerging threats, Palo Alto Networks has released its State of Cloud Security Report 2025, revealing how AI is dramatically expanding the cloud attack surface.

As cloud environments scale to support AI workloads, they have become prime targets for attackers. Nearly all respondents (99%) reported at least one attack against their AI systems in the past year. At the same time, the widespread use of GenAI-assisted “vibe coding”—now adopted by 99% of respondents—is accelerating the creation of insecure code faster than security teams can review it. While 52% of teams deploy code weekly, only 18% can fix vulnerabilities at the same pace, allowing risk to accumulate rapidly across cloud environments.

Elad Koren, Vice President of Product Management, Cortex, said: "As organizations aggressively scale cloud investments to power AI initiatives, they are inadvertently opening the door to sophisticated new attack vectors. Our research confirms that traditional approaches to cloud security are inadequate, leaving security teams to fight machine-speed threats with fragmented tools and slow, manual fix cycles. Teams need more than just dashboards highlighting risks they can never burn down; they must transform with an agentic-first platform that spans code to cloud to SOC to finally operate faster than the adversary."

Key Findings from the State of Cloud Security Report

Based on a survey of more than 2,800 security leaders and practitioners across 10 countries, the report highlights several AI-driven shifts reshaping cloud security:

New Frontiers of Cloud Risk

Attackers are increasingly targeting the foundational layers of the cloud—APIs, identities, and lateral network pathways—placing immense strain on already overburdened security teams.

• API attacks jump 41%: As agentic AI depends heavily on APIs, the rapid growth in API usage has significantly expanded the attack surface, making APIs a primary entry point for advanced threats.
• Identity remains the weakest link: Over half of respondents (53%) cite overly permissive identity and access management (IAM) practices as a top concern, underscoring identity as a leading vector for credential theft and data exfiltration.
• Persistent lateral movement risk: Twenty-eight percent (28%) of respondents point to unrestricted network access between cloud workloads as a growing threat, enabling attackers to move freely across environments and escalate minor breaches into major incidents.

The Growing Need to Unify Cloud and Security Operations Centers (SOC)

Tool sprawl and multivendor complexity are amplifying risk, making tighter integration between cloud security and SOC a strategic imperative.

• Tool sprawl creates blind spots: Managing an average of 17 cloud security tools from five vendors creates fragmented data and context gaps, slowing incident response. Consequently, 97% of respondents prioritize consolidating their cloud security footprint.
• Siloes delay remediation: Disconnected workflows and data silos between cloud and SOC teams hinder response, with 30% of organizations taking more than a day to resolve incidents.
• Cloud and SOC convergence is essential: Eighty-nine percent (89%) of respondents agree that cloud and application security must be fully integrated with the SOC to be effective.

End-to-End Defense at Machine Speed

As attackers increasingly weaponize AI to accelerate and scale attacks, static visibility and siloed tools leave cloud environments vulnerable. The report concludes that organizations must adopt end-to-end platforms that combine proactive risk reduction with rapid, automated incident response. Addressing this need, Palo Alto Networks Cortex® Cloud™ brings together industry-leading CNAPP and best-in-class CDR in an agentic-first platform—spanning code, cloud, and SOC—to secure cloud innovation at the speed of AI.

Source: Palo Alto Networks, Inc.

Stay Connected with ISE Magazine 

Subscribe to our newsletters and magazine for the latest telecom insights, explore the current issue for in-depth features and strategies, and register for upcoming webinars to learn directly from industry leaders.