- 65% of IT decision-makers believe the convergence of AI, quantum, and emerging technologies will drive unprecedented escalation in cyber conflict
- Half of respondents say cyberwarfare threat is imminent and have had to report an act of cyberwarfare to authorities
Armis, the cyber exposure management & security company, is warning that cyberwarfare 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, bringing the state of cyberwarfare to a boiling point,” said Nadir Izrael, CTO and Co-Founder of Armis. “Cyberwarfare is now a constant condition; attackers are operating at machine speed, while too many organizations are still trying to defend themselves with assumptions and structures built for a very different threat landscape. Organizational leaders must heed the call and immediately enhance their proactive cybersecurity operations before it’s too late.”
New findings from Armis Labs’ fourth annual global Cyberwarfare report, A World Under Pressure: Cyberwarfare in an Age of AI-Fueled Escalation, show how quickly that pressure is building. Nearly eight in ten IT decision-makers (79%) globally are concerned about nation-state actors using AI to develop more sophisticated and targeted cyberattacks, up from 73% last year, while two-thirds (67%) believe the misuse of emerging technologies will increase the likelihood of collateral damage to civilian infrastructure during cyber conflict.
Despite mounting pressure, there’s a false sense of confidence among organizations that remains surprisingly high. Nearly eight in ten (79%) IT decision-makers say their organization is prepared to handle a cyberwarfare attack, while 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’ve already been impacted by an AI-generated or AI-led attack in the past 12 months, and half (50%) admit they have still been unable to adequately secure their environment post-attack. At the same time, two-thirds (66%) also agree that organizations continue to underestimate the resources required to defend against AI-powered threats, revealing a widening gap between perceived preparedness and actual resilience.
“False confidence absent contextual intelligence is a force multiplier for the adversary,” said Michael Freeman, Head of Threat Intelligence at Armis. “In the era of AI-accelerated threats, nation-state actors exploit the gap between a defender’s perceived security and their actual exposure. Effective cyber exposure management doesn’t just provide a ‘view’; it provides the ground truth required to eliminate blind spots and preemptively harden the attack surface before the first exploit is even launched.”
Additional key global findings from this year’s report include:
- 69% of IT decision-makers agree that a global reliance on AI will intensify the geopolitical stakes of cybersecurity.
- 68% also agreethat the weaponization of AI will make cyber conflict a more persistent feature of global geopolitics.
- 64% say emerging technologies are making it harder to distinguish between espionage, cybercrime, and acts of war.
- 74% believe that cyberwarfare attacks will increase targeting institutions representing free press and independent thinking.
- 52% say ransomware payouts now exceed their annual cybersecurity budget.
- Average global ransomware payout in 2025: $11,610,000 / £7,710,000 / €8,440,000
The 2026 Armis Cyberwarfare Report is based on a study of more than 1,900 global IT decision-makers and proprietary data from Armis Labs.