AI or bust?

JumpCloud’s Q3 2024 SME IT Trends Report found that 64% of UK respondents agreed that AI threats are outpacing their ability to protect against them. This is a marked increase from the previous report. While 81% (vs. 70% in Q1 2024) of respondents concurred that their organisation should be investing in AI initiatives, there is growing concern about their ability to plug security gaps.

Bad actors are targeting UK SMEs, with 44% saying they've been a victim of a cybersecurity attack. Nearly two-thirds (60%) of UK SMEs claim they have had multiple attacks in 2024. Not surprisingly, security remains the biggest challenge, cited by 61% of UK respondents, a 10% increase from the previous report. UK respondents admitted that 25% of all cybersecurity incidents originated in AI-generated attacks. In fact, SME IT teams are more concerned about their security posture than they were six months ago.

JumpCloud's seventh edition of its biannual SME IT Trends Report serves as a resource for evaluating the state of IT, offering guidance on where it’s headed. More than 600 respondents were surveyed from the UK and USA, with 311 participants from the UK.

Shadow IT and the need for better admin control

The survey also found that UK SMEs are worried about shadow IT, with 85% of IT professionals saying that they're concerned about applications and resources managed outside of IT. When asked why they are not able to address shadow IT, 37% say they have more important priorities and 31% admit they don’t have the ability to discover all applications.

Today IT professionals at UK small to medium-sized enterprises face challenges on multiple levels. The growing threat of shadow IT and AI, the security gaps these are creating, managing an increasingly complex device and IT environment, and not to mention the UK General Election. Half of the UK respondents (49%) surveyed admitted that elections are adding additional uncertainty to the organisation’s future success.

Greg Keller, co-founder and CTO of JumpCloud said: “UK SMEs are grappling with subdued economic conditions combined with an increasingly complex environment. It is clear that security, AI, shadow IT and tool sprawl are considerable challenges. And we’ve yet to determine the knock-on impact of the UK elections. To keep their environment secure while grasping the opportunity that AI creates, IT admins need to consolidate tool sprawl and gain control of shadow IT. Eight out of 10 said they wanted a single centralised solution rather than many point solutions.”

Improving investment picture

Despite the uncertainty, there is optimism, particularly when it comes to investment. Those reporting budget increases rose slightly from Q1 2024 (72%) to Q3 2024 (76%). Seventeen percent of respondents say budgets will rise by more than 20% in Q3 2024 compared to 13% who said this in the first quarter of 2024. Thirty-three percent say budgets will rise by between 10%-20% versus 26% who said this in the last report.

UK businesses do appear to be grasping the opportunity that AI presents. AI adoption is accelerating, with 34% of UK respondents planning to implement AI in the next six months versus 19% in the last survey. In fact, in the previous report, 23% of UK respondents said they had no plans to implement AI; this dropped to 9% in these latest findings. Additionally, 75% view AI as a net positive versus 71% in Q1 2024.

UK SMEs need better visibility and a centralised solution

Without a doubt, the IT landscape is becoming more complex. UK respondents said that the number of tools used to manage the employee lifecycle was continuing to increase. Forty-six per cent said they're managing anywhere between five to 10 tools, up from 32% who said this in Q1 2024. Seventeen percent are managing between 11 and 15 tools, up again from 6% who said this in the last report.

Tool sprawl is becoming increasingly complex and hard to manage. Eighty-one percent said they would prefer to use a single centralised solution for identity, access, and security versus many-point solutions. This is a jump compared to 66% who said the same in the last report.

Other key findings include:

Shadow IT and phishing commonly used to attack UK SMEs – Phishing was cited as the main cause of cyberattacks (43%), followed by shadow IT (33%). Nearly half claimed they lacked the resources to protect against such attacks.

Top challenges – Outside of security, the increased cost of remote work (42%) and new services and application rollouts (41%) were the second and third biggest challenges.

Financially prepared – UK respondents who consider themselves financially prepared to deal with an attack have increased from 65% in Q1 to 73% in Q3. Likewise, the investment in expert IT security staff has also increased slightly.

Biometrics has surged – On average, the number of passwords employees are using has increased. This may account for why the use of biometrics for employee authentication has gone up significantly in the UK from 44% in the last report to 68% in these findings. This way, employees have fewer passwords to manage.

SMEs are deepening their ties with MSPs – They are particularly using MSPs for support for internal IT teams, a metric which has increased from 39% to 51%. Two-thirds (67%) say they plan to increase their investment in the next 12 months.

Lingering security concerns – Thirty-seven per cent of respondents said they’re concerned with how MSPs manage security.