Crystal Ball Series

Crystal Ball Series

MID-YEAR 2026 UPDATE

Data manipulation will overtake exfiltration as the primary threat

REDICTION TRACKING : EMERGING – DIRECTIONALLY ON TRACK

What we said vs. what 2026 is showing

WE PREDICTED (Jan 2026)
> 60-70% of high-impact incidents driven by data manipulation Pure exfiltration-only drops below 25% Integrity compromise becomes primary impact

WHAT HAPPENING NOW
Al data-poisoning & model manipulation rising Agentic Al alters payloads & data mid-attack Al ransomware exfiltrates 100x faster Integrity attacks on Al pipelines documented

Mid-year evidence

100x faster data exfiltration by Al-driven ransomware vs humans

49% increase in active ransomware groups in 2025

92.7% rise in exfiltration volume across 10 major ransomware families

30% of Al-model incidents involve supply-chain/data poisoning

OUR UPDATED POSITION
Emerging but directionally on track. Pure theft still dominates incidents today, yet integrity attacks’ data poisoning, model manipulation and agentic tampering – are the fastest-growing class and the clear trajectory for high-impact events as Al systems become business-critical. Organizations should start protecting data and model integrity now, not just preventing exfiltration.

Infrastructure attribution will eclipse malware analysis

By analyzing past behavior helps us assess Predictive threat Intelligence

Between 2016-2020

of major incidents centred on exfiltration

Breaches were measured primarily by

35-45% of incidents involved confirmed data theft

Preemptive External Threat Landscape Management

>60-70% High-impact incidents will be dominated by data manipulation

Pure exfiltration-only breaches will drop below ~25% of severe cases

Integrity compromise becomes primary impact across