- IBM X-Force 2026 Report Claims 44% Increase in Attacks on Public Applications
- Vulnerability exploitation accounted for 40% of incidents, while ransomware operators accounted for nearly 50%.
- GenAI lowers the barrier for low-skilled actors, accelerating attacks on supply chains and SaaS integrations
Experts have warned that hackers are becoming faster and more successful at exploiting vulnerabilities, all thanks to deeper integration of Gen AI tools into daily operations.
The 2026 IBM
These attacks are driven by an increase in the exploitation of vulnerabilities that, according to IBM, are responsible for 40% of all cyber incidents observed in 2025. At the same time, the number of active ransomware operators increased by almost 50%, while the number of publicly disclosed attacks grew by 12%.
Reevaluation of traditional security assumptions
“Attackers are not reinventing the manuals, they are accelerating them with AI,” said Mark Hughes, global managing partner of cybersecurity services at IBM. “The core problem is the same: companies are overwhelmed by software vulnerabilities. The difference now is speed.”
These days, threat actors are primarily targeting large supply chains and third-party partners, IBM added, stating that the number of incidents against these entities has increased nearly fourfold in half a decade.
Software, deployment environments, SaaS integrations, and CI/CD automation in development workflows appear to be the primary targets of these attacks.
Discussing how AI fits into this narrative, IBM says it primarily lowers the barrier to entry, making even low-skilled ransomware actors a major threat. Small groups, with limited resources, can use AI to automate parts of their operations, becoming faster and more disruptive.
Looking ahead, IBM expects bad actors to begin using AI for research, data analysis, and attack path refinement, all in real time.
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