New Research: AI-Driven Cybercrime Led to a 389% Increase in Ransomware Victims
New research reveals cybercriminals are working smarter, not harder, thanks to AI-enabled exploits. The research reveals a decline (22% year-over-year) in brute force attempts, indicating greater efficiency, as cybercriminals are making fewer brute force attempts against better-selected targets and increasing the likelihood of successful credential testing.
This activity can be broken down as follows:
- 67.65 billion brute force incidents worldwide
- 185 million attempts each day
- 1.3 billion attempts each week
- 5.6 billion attempts each month
Furthermore, the research showed a rise in exploitation attempts globally (25.49% year-over-year).
Victims of ransomware also increased by 389% year-over-year. The research attributes this growth partly to the accessibility of crime service kits, such as FraudGPT, WormGPT and BruteForceAI. The most targeted sectors include:
- Manufacturing (1,284)
- Business services (824)
- Retail (682)
“Cybercrime is one of the world’s most pervasive and costly threats, and our latest Global Threat Landscape Report reveals how malicious actors are beginning to leverage agentic AI to execute more sophisticated attacks,” remarks Derek Manky, Chief Security Strategist and Global VP of Threat Intelligence, Fortinet FortiGuard Labs. “As cybercriminals increasingly use AI to bolster their tactics, cyber defenders must evolve cybersecurity operations into an industrialized defense and adopt AI-enabled tools that respond at the same velocity as modern threats.”
These findings come from the 2026 Global Threat Landscape Report by FortiGuard Labs, providing an overview of trends and threats from 2025. This data suggests that cybercrime operates in a system rather than a series of isolated incidents.
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