As UK Businesses Ramp-Up AI Adoption and Hybrid Cloud Use, Security Risks are Mounting
According to Gigamon’s 2025 Hybrid Cloud Security Survey, a staggering 91% of organisations admit to making risky compromises in hybrid cloud environments, a reality that is putting sensitive UK data and infrastructure at serious risk.
The UK’s regulated industries including financial services, healthcare and government must pay close attention as breach rates soar 17% year-on-year, with 55% of organisations affected by AI-driven cyberattacks.
Why AI Is Changing the Game for UK Hybrid Cloud Security
AI’s rapid integration with hybrid clouds introduces new and very real vulnerabilities. The survey found that 46% of security leaders struggle with poor data quality when deploying secure AI workloads, while 47% lack adequate visibility into lateral traffic within their hybrid environments.
This means that AI-driven ransomware attacks have surged from 41% in 2024 to 58% in 2025 and 47% of organisations -including many in the UK – have already faced attacks targeting large language models (LLMs).
Public Cloud Concerns Among UK Security Leaders
Public cloud platforms are now seen as the top vulnerability for 70% of UK IT and security professionals.
Increasing fears over intellectual property theft and data governance gaps have led over half to consider repatriating data from public to private clouds. This trend highlights a growing demand to balance cloud agility with robust control – a key consideration for UK firms handling sensitive customer and corporate data under GDPR and other compliance frameworks.
Visibility: The Critical Security Weakness
More than half of UK security leaders lack confidence in their current tools ability to detect breaches in increasingly fragmented hybrid environments. Real-time threat monitoring and deep observability are now top priorities, with 64% investing in solutions that provide full visibility into encrypted and lateral data flows.
An impressive 89% agree that deep observability is essential to securing hybrid cloud infrastructure and UK boards are proactively discussing observability strategies to mitigate risk. Discover DataFortified’s Cyber Threat Intelligence.
Towards a Unified Security Approach for UK Hybrid Cloud
Fragmented tools and inconsistent policies across on-premises and cloud environments continue to expose UK businesses to misconfigurations and leaks. Cybersecurity experts stress the importance of embedding security as a core pillar. This provides UK organisations with actionable controls covering AI data governance, model integrity and system resilience, critical to defending against emerging AI-specific threats such as prompt injection and model poisoning.
How UK Businesses Should Respond to Hybrid Cloud Security Challenges
To protect hybrid cloud environments and stay ahead of AI-driven risks, UK organisations should:
Invest in deep observability:
Deploy tools that combine network telemetry and log data for complete visibility across hybrid cloud traffic, including encrypted sessions.
Consolidate security policies:
Move towards unified, end-to-end security controls spanning public and private clouds, aligned with UK regulatory requirements.
Adopt AI-specific governance:
Follow internationally recognised standards like ISO/IEC 42001 to embed security across AI lifecycles.
Prioritise compliance and governance:
Ensure AI and cloud deployments meet GDPR, NCSC guidance and sector-specific regulations.
How We Can Help
At DataFortified, we specialise in tailored cybersecurity solutions for the UK market, helping businesses safeguard their hybrid cloud infrastructure from AI-accelerated threats through expert visibility, threat intelligence and managed security services.
To find out more or request a consultation, please visit our website.
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