Nearly 40% of Employee Queries to Public AI Services Contain Corporate Secrets

Analysts at GK Solar examined 12,000 interactions logged by the Solar Dozor DLP system across 150 large Russian organizations in finance, industry, retail, telecom, IT, and government sectors during the first half of 2026. The study found that almost 40% of employee prompts sent to public AI services included confidential data. Of those risky queries, 41% contained source code and configurations, 30% held personal, financial or other sensitive information, 18% involved intellectual property, and 11% included passwords, tokens and API keys. Development teams accounted for 43% of the incidents, commercial units for 26%, analysts and HR for 23%, and other departments for 8%. A separate survey by UCSB and Solar revealed that 42.4% of 102 organizations suspected AI-related leaks and 8.1% had already experienced real incidents, while one-third still lack dedicated controls for AI and ML systems. Solar recommends approving allowed services, enforcing access segmentation and monitoring prompt content rather than imposing outright bans.

AntiMalwareTranslated from Russian

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Analysts at GK Solar have found that nearly 40% of employee interactions with public AI services contain confidential corporate information. The conclusion is based on analysis of 12,000 interactions captured during pilots of the Solar Dozor DLP system across 150 large organizations in the financial, industrial, retail, telecom, IT and public sectors during the first half of 2026.

Researchers examined text prompts, copied fragments, uploaded files and attempts to send data to external AI services. Among the queries that included sensitive information, 41% contained source code and system configurations, 30% included personal, financial and other sensitive data, 18% involved intellectual property objects, and the remaining 11% consisted of passwords, tokens and API keys.

Development teams were responsible for 43% of these events. Engineers sent code, error logs and technical descriptions to AI tools for debugging, refactoring and test generation, inadvertently exposing details of internal architecture and systems. Commercial divisions contributed another 26% of risky prompts, which often contained negotiation histories, deal terms, customer databases, contracts and CRM materials.

Analysts, marketers, HR and finance specialists accounted for 23% of incidents, while other departments made up the remaining 8%. A parallel survey conducted by UCSB and Solar showed that 42.4% of 102 respondent companies suspected leaks through AI services and 8.1% had already recorded confirmed incidents. At the same time, one-third of organizations still do not apply any specialized protection measures for AI and ML systems.

Solar considers a complete ban on public neural networks unrealistic. Instead, the company advises organizations to approve permitted services, segment access rights and monitor the content of requests to prevent corporate AI assistants from becoming overly talkative external employees.

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