The Cyber Security Report 2026 consolidates Check Point Research's extensive investigations into cyber threats observed during 2025, offering a data-driven perspective on attacker behavior and emerging risks. A central theme is the pervasive use of artificial intelligence (AI) as a force multiplier in cyber attacks, accelerating social engineering, reconnaissance, and malware development. AI not only enhances attacker capabilities but also introduces new enterprise risks through vulnerable AI model protocols and risky prompt usage, which increased by 97% in 2025. Ransomware operations have evolved from centralized groups to fragmented, smaller operators employing data-only extortion and personalized victim profiling, supported by automation and AI to shorten attack and negotiation timelines. Unmonitored devices such as routers, VPN appliances, and edge devices have become high-value targets, exploited for persistent access and lateral movement, often evading traditional endpoint and identity security controls. The report also highlights the synchronization of cyber operations with geopolitical conflicts, involving coordinated espionage, disruption, and influence campaigns targeting infrastructure linked to regional tensions. Attacker operations exhibit faster execution cycles, broader targeting with fewer resources, and reduced reliance on custom tooling. Chinese-nexus cyber threats are noted for their industrialized, global approach, frequent zero-day usage, and focus on edge infrastructure. Common conditions across environments include continuous exposure from misconfigurations, identity weaknesses, and ungoverned AI usage, with attack paths spanning cloud, edge, SaaS, and on-premises systems. The report serves as a strategic reference for security teams to understand and prepare for the evolving threat landscape in 2026.

European organizations face significant risks from the trends outlined in the report. The integration of AI in attacks means social engineering and malware campaigns can be more convincing and rapid, increasing the likelihood of successful breaches. Fragmented ransomware operations with personalized extortion tactics raise the threat level for businesses of all sizes, including critical infrastructure and SMEs. The exploitation of unmonitored edge and perimeter devices poses a stealthy threat vector, especially for organizations with complex network environments and legacy infrastructure. The alignment of cyber activity with geopolitical conflicts increases the risk for entities involved in or adjacent to regional tensions, potentially leading to espionage, disruption, or influence operations. The broad scope of affected environments—including cloud, SaaS, and on-premises—means that organizations must contend with multi-faceted attack surfaces. Identity weaknesses and misconfigurations exacerbate exposure, potentially enabling attackers to escalate privileges and move laterally. The evolving Chinese-nexus threats add a layer of persistent, industrialized risk targeting strategic assets. Overall, these factors could lead to data breaches, operational disruptions, financial losses, reputational damage, and regulatory penalties under European data protection laws.

European organizations should adopt a multi-layered, proactive security posture tailored to the specific risks highlighted. First, implement robust AI governance frameworks to monitor and control AI model usage, including prompt validation and vulnerability assessments of AI protocols to prevent prompt injection and workflow abuse. Enhance monitoring and patch management for edge and perimeter devices such as routers, VPNs, and gateways, integrating them into centralized security operations and threat detection systems. Strengthen identity and access management by enforcing least privilege, multi-factor authentication, and continuous identity risk assessments to reduce attack surface and lateral movement opportunities. Conduct regular network segmentation and zero-trust architecture adoption to limit attacker mobility. Increase threat intelligence sharing focused on geopolitical cyber threats to anticipate and prepare for regionally motivated attacks. Employ automated detection and response tools capable of identifying rapid attack cycles and AI-augmented tactics. Regularly audit cloud, SaaS, and on-premises configurations to eliminate misconfigurations and unmanaged assets. Finally, develop incident response plans that consider fragmented ransomware tactics and data-only extortion, incorporating negotiation and recovery strategies aligned with evolving attacker behaviors.