Cyber risk in recruitment: managing AI-driven threats

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the cyber risk profile of recruitment businesses. The balance of power has shifted: cyber-attacks are now faster, more convincing and more scalable than many recruitment firms can realistically counter using traditional defences alone.

What we see across the recruitment sector is a growing gap between attacker capability and organisational resilience. Recruitment businesses hold large volumes of sensitive candidate and contractor data, rely on tightly integrated CRM, payroll and billing systems, and operate under constant time pressure to pay contractors accurately and on time. This combination makes them especially attractive targets.