The Attack Cycle is Accelerating: Announcing the Rapid7 2026 Global Threat Landscape Report

The predictive window has collapsed. In 2025, high-impact vulnerabilities weren’t quietly accumulating risk. They were operationalized, and often within days. Today, Rapid7 Labs released the 2026 Global Threat Landscape Report , an in-depth analysis of how attacker behavior is evolving across vulnerability exploitation, ransomware operations, identity abuse, and AI-driven tradecraft. The data shows a clear pattern: exposure is being identified and weaponized faster than most organizations are set up to defend. From disclosure to exploitation in days, not weeks In 2025, confirmed exploitation of newly disclosed CVSS 7–10 vulnerabilities increased 105% year over year, rising from 71 to 146. The median time from publication to inclusion in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list fell from 8.5 days to 5.0 days. At the same time, the number of high-probability vulnerabilities that remained unexploited dropped sharply. The buffer that once allowed teams to triage and schedule remediation is shrinking to the point where some severe flaws were seen to have been exploited almost immediately. The broader trend is unmistakable: vulnerability management programs built around reactive remediation cycles are struggling to keep pace with adversaries operating at machine speed. Cybercrime as a structured market Cybercrime in 2025 no longer resembles chaotic hacking. It resembles platform capitalism. The report highlights how the underground economy now mirrors legitimate SaaS ecosystems. Initial Access Brokers obtain and validate network footholds. Ransomware operators focus on encryption and extortion. Infostealer operators sell subscription-style access to fresh credential logs. This specialization lowers barriers to entry and increases scale creating a supply chain in which access is acquired, packaged, priced, and sold to anyone who wants it. Ransomware is a good example of this business maturity. It was present in 42% of Rapid7 MDR investigations in 2025 with leak posts increasing 46.4% year over year, and the number of active groups growing from 102 to 140. That kind of growth is anything but random or coincidental: it is an indication of systemic changes to the ransomware ecosystem indicating growing sophistication, specialization, and, ultimately, risk. Logging in, not breaking in Authentication-based attacks remain incredibly common as the lack of consistency across organizations can lead to easy exploitation. Valid accounts without multi-factor authentication (MFA) were responsible for 43.9% of incidents over that year. Rather than forcing their way past defenses, attackers increasingly authenticate with stolen credentials, hijacked sessions, or abused tokens. This is where the increase in AI-driven attacks is particularly acute with the benefits generative AI can play in improving the maturity and sophistication of social engineering attacks. As enterprises extend trust across cloud platforms, SaaS ecosystems, APIs, and remote work environments, a