The Threats That Matter. Weekly.

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Latest Editions

E86 - Castles on Quicksand

March 31, 2026 | IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2026 & Red Canary Threat Detection Report 2026

IBM X-Force and Red Canary's 2026 reports converge on an uncomfortable truth: sophisticated attacks are succeeding through basic failures. With 109 active ransomware groups, an 850% surge in identity attacks, and AI currently favoring defenders — the security industry is optimizing for the wrong threats.

E85 - The Responder's Report

March 24, 2026 | Mandiant M-Trends 2026 — March 2026

Mandiant M-Trends 2026 — built on 500,000+ hours of incident response across 83 campaigns and 73 countries. Voice phishing surges to #2 vector, ransomware operators industrialize recovery denial, and the first AI-powered malware families are confirmed in the wild.

E84 - The Digital Parasite

March 17, 2026 | Picus Red Report 2026 — March 2026

Picus Labs analyzed 1.1 million malicious files and 15.5 million adversarial actions. 80% of the top 10 MITRE ATT&CK techniques are now dedicated to evasion and persistence — not disruption. Ransomware encryption declined 38%. Credential theft is now twice as prevalent. The adversary's primary success metric is no longer impact — it's dwell time.

E83 - The Convergence

March 13, 2026 | CrowdStrike 2026 Global Threat Report — February 2026

CrowdStrike tracks 281 adversaries. The fastest breakout time: 27 seconds. 82% of intrusions are malware-free. Three major 2026 threat reports in three weeks converge on one conclusion — identity is the perimeter, cloud is the battlefield, and traditional security models are defending against yesterday's threat landscape.

E82 - Blending In

March 9, 2026 | 2026 Cloudflare Threat Report — March 3, 2026

Cloudflare processes 20% of global internet traffic and blocks 230 billion threats daily. Their inaugural threat report reveals attackers have stopped breaking in — they're blending in. 94% of login attempts are bots. 63% of human logins use compromised credentials. Living off XaaS is the new attack model.

E81 - 72 Minutes

March 3, 2026 | Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report 2026 — February 2026

Unit 42 analyzed 750+ incidents in 2025. 90% were preventable. Exfiltration in 72 minutes. Identity is the skeleton key. AI compresses the kill chain. Supply chains are nation-state highways. A presidential-level debrief on the report that should reshape every security strategy.

E80 - From Knowing to Doing

February 24, 2026 | World Economic Forum — February 2026

WEF Roundup: Three reports in one week expose the same gap — organizations know the risks but aren't acting fast enough. 87% flag AI vulnerabilities. Fewer than 1% govern AI responsibly. Quantum harvest-now-decrypt-later is already underway. What leaders need to hear to close the gap.

E79 - Same AI, Different Mission

February 16, 2026 | GTIG AI Threat Tracker — February 12, 2026

GTIG AI Threat Tracker: Seven state-sponsored groups weaponize Gemini across the full attack lifecycle. HONESTCUE malware calls AI APIs at runtime. Model extraction at 100K+ prompts. ClickFix campaigns hosted on trusted AI platforms.

E78 - Three Flags, One Target

February 10, 2026 | CERT-EU Cyber Brief — January 2026

CERT-EU's January 2026 Cyber Brief: China, Russia, and North Korea converged on Western critical infrastructure simultaneously. Salt Typhoon, Sandworm, Contagious Interview, 6 zero-days, and LLM targeting.

E77 - The Threat Your Security Stack Can't See

February 3, 2026 | Wiz CISO Budget Survey Report 2026

Wiz CISO Budget Survey 2026: 85% of CISOs increased cloud security spending—56% say it's still not enough. Shadow AI is the new blind spot.

E76 - Ransomware's Profit Problem (And Why That Makes It Worse)

January 30, 2026 | GuidePoint 2026 Ransomware and Cyber Threat Report

GuidePoint 2026 Ransomware Report: When profits shrink, attackers don't quit. They industrialize. 7,515 organizations were publicly posted as ransomware victims in 2025.

E75 - When Attackers Move Faster Than You Can Think

January 27, 2026 | Fortinet 2026 Threat Predictions Report

Fortinet's 2026 Threat Predictions: Attackers aren't just using AI—they're deploying autonomous agents that hunt, breach, and monetize without human intervention.

E74 - Welcome to 2026

January 2, 2026 | Google Cybersecurity Forecast 2026

Google's Cybersecurity Forecast 2026: AI isn't just accelerating cybersecurity—it IS cybersecurity.

E73 - Six Threat Vectors. One Action Plan.

November 11, 2025 | Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2025

Microsoft processes 100 trillion signals daily. Their 2025 Digital Defense Report distills it into six threat vectors every security leader should track.

E72 - When Insurance Becomes a Security Tool

October 29, 2025 | CLTC White Paper — Economics of Cyber Policies for Critical Care

UC Berkeley's CLTC studied cyber insurance economics — 80% of organizations improved security specifically to qualify for coverage.

E71 - When AI Becomes the Attacker

September 30, 2025 | Anthropic Threat Intelligence Report — Detecting & Countering Misuse

Anthropic published transparent data on how their AI models are being weaponized — from ransomware development to employment fraud to automated extortion.

E70 - Identity Is Your Security Nerve Center

September 18, 2025 | SailPoint — The Horizons of Identity Security 2025

63% of enterprises remain in the lowest two identity maturity horizons. Less than 40% govern AI agent identities. SailPoint's data tells the story.

E69 - The Cloud Is Now the Battleground

September 9, 2025 | Orca Security — 2025 State of Cloud Security Report

Orca Security analyzed billions of cloud assets. 84% run AI workloads, 62% with vulnerable packages. 32% of assets unpatched. 85% embed plaintext secrets in code.

E68 - Your Code Is Aging Faster Than You're Fixing It

August 26, 2025 | Veracode — 2025 State of Software Security

Veracode's 15th annual report: 80% of apps contain security flaws, median fix time ballooned to 252 days, 74% carry security debt, and 70% of critical debt lives in open-source dependencies.

E67 - Attackers Are Running Like a Business

August 19, 2025 | CrowdStrike 2025 Threat Hunting Report

CrowdStrike's threat hunting team found interactive intrusions up 27%, 81% malware-free, cloud intrusions surged 136%, and vishing exploded 442%. Electronic crime represents 73% of all interactive activity.

E66 - Shadow AI Is Already Costing You $670,000

August 6, 2025 | IBM — 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report

IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report: U.S. breaches hit $10.22M average, shadow AI adds $670K to breach costs, 1 in 6 breaches involve AI-powered attacks, and security AI saves $1.9M.

E65 - 110 CISOs Told Us What Keeps Them Up at Night

July 29, 2025 | Team8 — 2025 CISO Village Survey

Team8's 2025 CISO Village Survey: #1 pain point is securing AI agents (39%). 5 of top 9 priorities are AI-related. 67% deploying agentic AI in 2025. Budgets tightening — 52% saw increases, down from 70%.

E64 - A Billion Accounts Without MFA

July 23, 2025 | Trend Micro — 2025 Cyber Risk Report

Trend Micro's 2025 Cyber Risk Report: CRI averages 38.4 (medium risk). Over 1 billion accounts lack MFA. 57M high-risk emails blocked (+27% YoY). Mean patch time 41.3 days for large enterprises.

E63 - 90% of Organizations Can't Counter AI-Enabled Threats

July 16, 2025 | Accenture — State of Cybersecurity Resilience 2025

Accenture surveyed 2,286 executives: 90% lack maturity to counter AI-enabled threats. Only 10% reach Reinvention-Ready status. Cyberattacks surged 75% YoY. 4.8 million unfilled cybersecurity positions globally.

E62 - Identity Crime Is Now a Mental Health Crisis

July 8, 2025 | ITRC — 2025 Trends in Identity Report

ITRC's 2025 Trends in Identity Report: identity misuse is expanding into prolonged victimization, support systems aren't keeping up, and the emotional toll is turning identity crime into a mental health crisis.

E61 - Cybersecurity's Last Mile Problem

July 1, 2025 | UC Berkeley CLTC — The Roadmap to Community Cyber Defense

UC Berkeley CLTC's roadmap for community cyber defense: hospitals, schools, utilities, and local governments face enterprise-grade threats with minimal resources. Five building blocks for community resilience.

E60 - The Identities You're Not Managing Are the Ones Getting Compromised

June 24, 2025 | CyberArk — 2025 State of Machine Identity Security

CyberArk's 2025 report: 50% of orgs had machine identity security incidents. 79% expect 150% growth. Only 23% prioritize them. Certificate outages tripled since 2022.

E59 - 150,000 Incidents Prove Time Is the Variable That Matters

June 17, 2025 | Cyentia Institute — IRIS 2025

Cyentia Institute's IRIS 2025: 150,000+ incidents over 15 years. Sixfold increase in significant incidents. Large firms 620x more likely to be targeted. Median loss $2.9M, tail risk $32M.

E58 - Can AI Agents Tip the Scales Toward Defenders?

June 11, 2025 | World Economic Forum — AI Agents and Cybersecurity

World Economic Forum: autonomous AI agents can shift cybersecurity advantage toward defenders — proactive vulnerability remediation, self-healing networks, and coordinated global defense at microsecond speed.

E57 - 93,000 Threats Across 4 Million Endpoints

June 3, 2025 | Red Canary — 2025 Threat Detection Report

Red Canary's 2025 Threat Detection Report: 93,000 threats detected (+33% YoY), identity attacks surged 4x, ransomware demands hit $75M, and initial access is evolving beyond email phishing.

E56 - 48 Minutes to Breakout

May 27, 2025 | SANS — Threat Analysis Rundown with Katie Nickels

SANS analyst Katie Nickels synthesizes Mandiant, CrowdStrike, and Verizon DBIR: 48-minute breakout time, ransomware surged 37%, dwell time down to 11 days, 79% of detections involve legitimate tool misuse.

Best of the Best

Our most impactful editions — deep analysis of the industry's most-cited annual reports. Consolidated and updated for lasting reference value.

Best of E52 - 450,000 Hours on the Front Lines

April 29, 2025 | Mandiant M-Trends 2025

Mandiant M-Trends 2025: 450K+ hours of incident response. Exploits lead at 33%, stolen credentials surpass phishing, North Korean IT workers at 5% of attack vectors, and dwell time drops to 11 days — but not because defenders are faster.

Best of E51 - 12,000 Breaches and the Year Everything Doubled

April 23, 2025 | Verizon 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR)

Verizon 2025 DBIR: 12,000+ breaches analyzed. Third-party risk doubled, ransomware surged 37%, zero-day edge exploitation up 800%, and SMBs face 88% ransomware rate. The most-cited cybersecurity report of the year.

Best of E45 - 51 Seconds to Breakout

March 11, 2025 | CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report

CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report: Breakout time averages 48 minutes with a 51-second floor. 79% of attacks are malware-free. Vishing surged 442%. China-nexus espionage spiked 150%. The speed benchmark for the threat landscape.

Best of E39 - 900 Million Attacks and the List That Missed 73%

January 28, 2025 | Forescout 2024 Global Threat Roundup

Forescout 2024 Global Threat Roundup: 900M attacks observed. 73% of exploited vulnerabilities NOT in CISA KEV. Critical infrastructure attacks up 668% since 2022. State-sponsored at 48%. The OT/IoT threat landscape most reports miss.

Best of E36 - 66% Say AI Will Reshape Cybersecurity. Only 37% Are Ready.

January 14, 2025 | World Economic Forum — Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025

WEF Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025: The 29-point gap between AI expectation and readiness defines 2025. 60% cite geopolitical risk, 54% name supply chain #1 challenge, 35% of SMBs lack resilience, 69% cite regulatory complexity, $12.5B in cybercrime costs.

Best of E32 - 19 Vendors Tested. Most Missed Over Half the Attack.

December 17, 2024 | MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Evaluation 2024

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Evaluation 2024: 19 endpoint vendors tested against LockBit and CL0P ransomware behaviors. Most detected fewer than 50% of attack steps. Cynet and Cortex XDR achieved 100%. First macOS testing and false positive tracking.

Best of E30 - A Five Eyes Intelligence Agency Shows Its Cards

December 3, 2024 | Australian Signals Directorate — Annual Cyber Threat Report 2023-24

Australian Signals Directorate Annual Cyber Threat Report: 36,700 hotline calls, 82M malicious domains blocked, 250% surge in high-priority taskings. PRC pre-positioning confirmed. SMB cybercrime costs rising. A government intelligence perspective on the threat landscape.

Best of E24 - $1 Trillion in Fraud and 775 Million Malware Emails

October 22, 2024 | Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024

Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024: $1 trillion global fraud losses, 775M malware emails, 4,500 DDoS attacks daily, 83% of orgs hit multiple times. The fraud-cybercrime convergence — synthetic identities, PhaaS, and patch windows compressed to hours.

Best of E23 - The War You Can't See

October 15, 2024 | Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Center

Atlantic Council research on Information Influence Activities: the IIA taxonomy (disinformation, misinformation, malinformation, propaganda), Russia's documented playbook, AI as force multiplier for information warfare, and why your SOC isn't built to detect the threat that costs more than ransomware.

Best of E21 - Europe's Threat Map and the Seven Threats That Define the Landscape

October 1, 2024 | ENISA Threat Landscape 2024

ENISA Threat Landscape 2024: Seven prime threats mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, ISO 27001, and NIST CSF v2.0. Public administration absorbs 19% of attacks. Living Off Trusted Sites (LOTS) abuses legitimate cloud services. FraudGPT operational. $25M deepfake loss. The regulatory authority's threat assessment IS the NIS2 compliance preview.

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