Global cyber incidents hit record high in 1st half of 2026: Report
- Serious incidents rise 71% year-on-year as researchers warn AI agents could accelerate automated attacks
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- Serious incidents rise 71% year-on-year as researchers warn AI agents could accelerate automated attacks
By Necva Tastan Sevinc
ISTANBUL (AA) - Serious cyber incidents worldwide reached a record high in the first half of 2026, with researchers warning that artificial intelligence could further increase the scale and speed of attacks, ANSA reported Wednesday, citing Italy’s information security association Clusit.
The association’s updated 2026 report, presented in Verona, recorded 4,911 serious incidents globally in January-June, up 71% from the same period last year and 105% from the preceding six months.
The figure represented 93% of all incidents recorded in 2025, with an average of 819 incidents per month.
In Italy, known incidents fell to 245 from 280 in the first half of 2025, accounting for about 5% of the global total. However, incidents classified as having “high” severity rose by nearly 20 percentage points to 57% of the country’s total.
Manufacturing became Italy’s hardest-hit sector as financially motivated cybercrime against businesses increased and hacktivism, hacking intended to advance political, social, or ideological causes, declined.
Malware accounted for 43% of incidents in Italy, compared with 22.7% in 2025.
Clusit researchers said improved security procedures and defenses following Italian cybersecurity legislation and the EU's NIS2 rules could partly explain the decline in hacktivism.
The report also highlighted early signs of “agentic hacking,” in which AI agents perform attack tasks with increasing autonomy.
Researchers warned that coordinated groups of AI agents could eventually carry out fully automated attacks, adapting their strategies and combining techniques to exploit vulnerabilities in organizations’ systems.
They called for clearer responsibilities, adaptive governance and defenses capable of responding rapidly and automatically to AI-driven threats.
“The data tells us that the nature of risk is changing,” Clusit President Anna Vaccarelli said.
She urged organizations to treat cybersecurity as essential to business continuity and a shared responsibility supporting national resilience.
Necva Taştan Sevinç