A new report warns that cyberwarfare threats may have reached a global tipping point as emerging technologies accelerate cyber operations and geopolitical tensions worsen, attackers are increasingly targeting the infrastructure, information, and systems that underpin global stability.
The study from Armis finds 79 percent of over 1,900 IT decision-makers surveyed globally are concerned about nation-state actors using AI to develop more sophisticated and targeted cyberattacks, up from 73 percent last year, while 67 percent believe the misuse of emerging technologies will increase the likelihood of collateral damage to civilian infrastructure during cyber conflict.
“Geopolitical tensions, AI acceleration, and unresolved security gaps are colliding, bringing the state of cyberwarfare to a boiling point,” says 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.”
The report also warns that despite mounting pressure, there’s a false sense of confidence among organizations. 79 percent of IT decision-makers say their organization is prepared to handle a cyberwarfare attack, while 76 percent believe they are ready to mitigate AI-driven threats. This confidence is increasingly disconnected from reality.
More than half (54 percent) of organizations report they’ve already been impacted by an AI-generated or AI-led attack in the past 12 months, and 50 percent admit they have still been unable to adequately secure their environment post-attack. At the same time, 66 percent 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,” says 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.”
You can get the full report from the Armis site.
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