Press release
Palo Alto Networks Report Reveals AI Is Driving a Massive Cloud Attack Surface Expansion
99% of organizations have experienced an attack against AI apps and services in the past year; Security teams can't keep pace with the surging volume of
About this update from Palo Alto Networks, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"99% of organizations have experienced an attack against AI apps and services in the past year; Security teams can't keep pace with the surging volume of insecure codeSANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The rapid adoption of enterprise AI is fueling an unprecedented surge in cloud security risks. To help organizations understand and combat escalating threats, Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW), the global cybersecurity leader, today released its annual \"State of Cloud Security Report 2025,\" exposing how AI is driving a massive expansion of the cloud attack surface.As cloud infrastructure grows to host the influx of AI workloads, it has become a critical target, with 99% of respondents reporting at least one attack on their AI systems within the past year. Simultaneously, the rise of GenAI-assisted vibe coding, used by 99% of respondents, is generating insecure code faster than security teams can review it. Of the 52% of teams that ship code weekly, only 18% are able to fix vulnerabilities at that pace, leaving unaddressed risks compounding rapidly across cloud environments.Elad Koren, Vice President of Product Management, Cortex \"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.\"Palo Alto Networks State of Cloud Report HighlightsBased on a survey of over 2,800 security executives and practitioners across 10 countries, the report reveals critical shifts driven by AI in the cloud, including:New frontiers of cloud risk: Attackers are rapidly pivoting to exploit the foundational layers of the cloud, targeting API infrastructure, identity and lateral network movement, overwhelming already strained security teams.API attacks jump 41%: As agentic AI relies heavily on APIs to operate, this explosion in usage has greatly expanded the attack surface, turning APIs into a primary entry point for sophisticated threats.Identity r...