- Cloudflare warns that GenAI is reshaping cyberattacks
- Report Highlights AI-Driven Supply Chain and Espionage Threats
- DDoS and social engineering form a trio of critical attacks
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is the driving force behind a “fundamental reconfiguration of modern cyberattack”, experts said, urging companies to increase their protection immediately.
Cloudflare’s inaugural 2026 Threat Report, based on data from the 230 billion threats the company blocks on average each day, claims we are seeing a complete industrialization of cybercrime and says it is being adopted by both for-profit and state-sponsored actors.
In the document, the company details the “first AI-based attack” on record, in which a threat actor used AI to identify the location of high-value data, compromising hundreds of corporate tenants. It was “one of the most impactful supply chain attacks ever seen,” Cloudflare said.
DDoS and social engineering
Nation-states are also betting on AI. North Korean groups are reportedly using deepfakes and AI-generated fake IDs to bypass hiring filters, smuggling state-sponsored spies directly to Western companies. They don’t even use VPN to hide their location. Instead, they are using local “laptop farms.”
While AI has not only lowered the barrier to entry, but erased it entirely, Cloudflare isn’t just focused on the nascent technology. He also mentions DDoS and social engineering, forming an “unholy trinity” of contemporary cybercriminals.
DDoS attacks, for example, have now surpassed human response capabilities. Large-scale botnets like Aisuru have evolved into nation-state-level threats capable of taking down entire countries’ networks, Cloudflare warns, stating that with record attacks reaching 31.4 Tbps, these high-speed attacks now “demand fully autonomous defenses.”
“Threat actors are constantly changing tactics, finding new vulnerabilities to exploit and ways to overwhelm their victims. To avoid being caught off guard, organizations must shift from a reactive posture to one driven by real-time, actionable intelligence,” said Blake Darché, head of threat intelligence, Cloudforce One at Cloudflare.
“The message to defenders is simple: lead smart or risk falling behind in a race where the stakes have never been higher.”
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