Middle East Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2026

The cyber threat landscape in the Middle East during the 2026 period exhibited a complex structure shaped by a combination of financially motivated ransomware operations, data breaches, hacktivist activities, and state-sponsored cyber espionage operations. A total of 170 ransomware and data extortion incidents were observed across the region, with attacks specifically targeting economically critical sectors, public institutions, and infrastructure in manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and energy.

The most frequently targeted countries in the region were Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Turkey had the highest volume of attacks in the region with 45 incidents, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 31, Israel with 27, Egypt with 22, and Saudi Arabia with 13 incidents. Key factors contributing to this concentration include the countries’ economic size, levels of digitalization, critical infrastructure assets, and extensive attack surfaces.

Within the ransomware ecosystem, TheGentlemen emerged as the most active threat actor in the region, accounting for a significant portion of total activity with 28 incidents. Handala, on the other hand, stood out as a key actor that, unlike traditional ransomware groups, conducts politically motivated data leaks and information operations rather than seeking financial gain. Groups such as DragonForce, Qilin, LockBit5, IncRansom, and Nightspire were also among the actors exhibiting high levels of activity in the regional threat landscape.

Dark web intelligence data shows that organizations in the region are facing not only ransomware attacks but also database sales, advertisements for unauthorized access, credential leaks, and the sharing of access to critical systems. While the public sector, education, finance, and critical infrastructure sectors are among the most targeted areas on the dark web, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Turkey stand out as the countries with the highest visible threat activity.

Furthermore, the activities of APT groups demonstrate that the threat landscape in the region is not limited to financially motivated attacks. Advanced threat actors such as MuddyWater and OilRig (APT34) have continued their operations aimed at establishing long-term access, collecting credentials, conducting network reconnaissance, and exfiltrating sensitive data for intelligence purposes. The misuse of legitimate tools such as PowerShell, WMI, RDP, PsExec, and cloud services has been widely observed in these operations.

In the context of the overall assessment, it is evident that the cyber threat landscape in the Middle East is evolving into an increasingly organized, multi-layered structure influenced by geopolitical developments. It is critically important for organizations to invest not only in traditional security controls but also in threat intelligence, identity security, attack surface management, and advanced threat detection capabilities.