- AI feeds a huge increase in cyber attacks
- The United States is the main target of ransomware attacks
- Threat actors turn to vulnerable assets
This will not surprise many cybersecurity professionals, but AI is at the origin of a drastic increase in the number of cyberattacks, with new ranges of fortnet revealing the appropriate scale of the problem.
The study revealed that the automated scanning activity found an increase of 16.7%, with 36,000 scans per second recorded worldwide – research describing threat actors as “moving to the left” to vulnerable digital assets “earlier in the attack life cycle”, in particular, the remote office protocol, IoT systems and the initiation protocols of session.
Infosteralists have long threatened organizations, but this research has revealed an astounding increase of 500% of the newspapers available from compromise systems – which means that more than 1.7 billion stolen skills securities circulate on the dark canvas, noting: “This flood of stolen data has led to a sharp increase in the targeted cyberattacks against companies and individuals.
A call to action
The report warns that cybercriminals also benefit from these connection details, with an increase of 42% of the compromised identification information observed for sale.
Interestingly, zero-day attacks represent only a “small percentage” of threats, and cybercriminals are increasingly using “Live of the Land” vulnerabilities to remain unteashed.
The landscape of ransomware as a service is developing, with new emerging groups and former players soliding their earnings. Ransomhub was the most active group in 2024, claiming 13%of victims, with Lockbit 3.0 (12%), Play (8%) and Medusa (4%) who followed closely.
Such ransomware attacks target a particular country, the United States taking 61% of incidents, followed by the United Kingdom at 6% and Canada at 5%-a strong indication of the trend against American organizations.
“Our report on the landscape of global threats in 2025 clearly shows this: cybercriminals evolve faster than ever, using AI and automation to gain the upper hand,” said Derek Manky, Chief Security Stratege and World Vice President of Threats at Fortiguard Labs.
“Defenders must abandon exceeded security manuals and go to proactive and intelligence strategies that integrate AI, zero trust architectures and continuous management of exposure to threats.”
