The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) warns in its annual report of an unprecedented escalation in ransomware attacks, the increasing use of artificial intelligence, and the blurring lines between cybercrime and state-sponsored activity.
The report, reviewing the situation over the past year, names ransomware as the most destructive threat facing organizations across the continent. These attacks no longer settle for merely encrypting systems, but incorporate systematic data theft and double extortion through threats of data leaks. The public sector was the primary target, absorbing nearly a third of all incidents, followed by business services, manufacturing, transportation, and finance. Particularly concerning is that nearly three-quarters of the victims are classified under European regulations as essential or critically important entities.
Cybercrime accounted for more than a third of all incidents, with ransomware leading financially motivated activity alongside widespread data breaches and impersonation fraud. Across the broader operational spectrum, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks accounted for more than half of all documented incidents, while unauthorized access made up a significant portion of the remaining activity.
An analysis of penetration techniques reveals that phishing remains the most common social engineering method, while most unauthorized access incidents relied on exploiting known security vulnerabilities. Against this backdrop, the discovery of more than 48,000 new vulnerabilities—a sharp surge compared to the previous year—worsens the exposure of software vendors, cloud infrastructure, and subcontractors, increasing downstream supply chain risks.
Alongside financial crime, a wave of online hacktivism spanning thousands of campaigns swept EU member states, primarily through server flooding designed to disrupt services. This activity was fueled mainly by ideology and geopolitical tensions, including the war in Ukraine, escalation in the Middle East, and sensitive elections. Among state actors, Russian-affiliated groups led by a wide margin, focusing on government institutions and diplomatic bodies, while Chinese-linked groups continued espionage against transportation systems and maritime infrastructure.
Another concerning trend is the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into offensive cyber operations. According to the report’s authors, these tools are already accelerating malware development and expanding attack scale, and are expected in the future to be integrated across the entire cyber kill chain, extending to experiments with autonomous systems operating without human intervention.
Agency experts conclude that the threat landscape has become interconnected and blurred, with different actors sharing the same hacking tools and infrastructure. This reality complicates attribution and requires organizations to defend not only internal networks, but all digital dependencies on external suppliers and systems.
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