Ransomware activity targeting the Middle East surged to its highest level during the 17-month period assessed by CloudSEK, jumping from 17 threat intelligence feeds in April 2025 to 357 in June 2026 — more than a 20-fold increase.
The sharp ransomware escalation is part of a wider shift in the region’s cyber threat landscape, where financially motivated cybercrime is increasingly operating alongside politically driven hacktivism, state-linked espionage, destructive attacks and rapid exploitation of critical vulnerabilities.
