Cyber warfare has entered a new phase where AI accelerates both the speed and complexity of attacks. According to the Armis Cyberwarfare Report 2026, organizations worldwide are increasingly exposed while a dangerous overconfidence in their own security is growing.
Armis, the company specializing in cyber exposure management and security, warns that cyber warfare threats have reached a global pressure-cooker moment. As emerging technologies accelerate cyber operations and geopolitical tensions worsen, attackers are increasingly targeting the infrastructure, information, and systems that underpin global stability.
“Geopolitical tensions, AI acceleration, and unresolved security gaps are colliding and bringing cyber warfare to a boiling point,” says Nadir Izrael, co‑founder and Chief Technology Officer at Armis. “Cyber warfare is now a persistent condition; attackers operate at machine speed while far too many organizations still try to defend themselves with assumptions and structures built for a very different threat landscape. Organizational leaders must heed this warning and immediately strengthen proactive cybersecurity operations before it is too late.”
New findings from Armis Labs’ fourth annual global cyber warfare report, A World Under Pressure: Cyberwarfare in an Age of AI-Fueled Escalation, illustrate how rapidly pressure is building. Nearly eight in ten IT decision-makers (79%) worldwide are concerned that nation-state actors are using AI to develop more sophisticated, targeted cyberattacks—up from 73% last year—while two-thirds (67%) believe misuse of emerging technologies will increase the likelihood of unintended damage to civilian infrastructure during cyber conflicts.
Despite mounting pressure, a false sense of confidence persists among organizations. Almost eight in ten (79%) IT decision-makers say their organization is prepared to handle a cyberattack, and 76% believe they are ready to mitigate AI-driven threats. This confidence is increasingly disconnected from reality.
More than half (54%) of organizations report they have already experienced an AI-generated or AI-led attack in the past 12 months, and half (50%) admit they still have not been able to sufficiently secure their environment after an attack. At the same time, two-thirds (66%) agree that organizations continue to underestimate the resources required to defend against AI-driven threats, revealing a widening gap between perceived preparedness and actual resilience.
“False confidence in the absence of contextual intelligence is a force multiplier for the adversary,” says Michael Freeman, head of threat intelligence at Armis. “In an era of AI-accelerated threats, nation-state actors exploit the gap between a defender’s perceived security and their real exposure. Effective cyber exposure management does more than provide a ‘view’; it delivers the fundamental insight needed to eliminate blind spots and proactively harden the attack surface before the first strike even begins.”
Additional key global findings from this year’s report include:
- 69% of IT decision-makers agree that global reliance on AI will intensify the geopolitical stakes in cybersecurity.
- 68% agree that the weaponization of AI will make cyber conflicts a more persistent feature of global geopolitics.
- 64% say emerging technologies make it harder to distinguish between espionage, cybercrime, and acts of war.
- 74% believe cyberwarfare attacks will increase and be directed at institutions that represent a free press and independent thinking.
- 52% say ransomware payouts now exceed their annual cybersecurity budgets.
- Average global ransomware payout in 2025: $11,610,000 / £7,710,000 / €8,440,000
The Armis Cyberwarfare Report 2026 is based on a study of more than 1,900 global IT decision-makers and proprietary data from Armis Labs. The full report includes detailed regional and industry breakdowns.
Read the blog to dive deeper into these global findings and the key lessons for organizations.
For a closer look at the report’s findings reflecting the perspectives of IT decision-makers within the U.S. federal government, read the related analysis.