Dupple original data
Cybersecurity statistics 2026
Most cybersecurity statistics pages recycle the same vendor charts. This one leads with data only Dupple can publish. Our news radar indexes roughly one million tech articles a year, and across the 645,653 headlines it catalogued between July 2025 and August 2026, cybersecurity was the single most persistent topic, with its share of coverage climbing every quarter to 41.6 mentions per 10,000 headlines. Our first-party numbers come first, then a tightly sourced set of industry figures from the FBI, IBM, Verizon, Microsoft, and others, each deep-linked to the page it came from. If you want tools, see our guide to the best AI cybersecurity tools; to reach security buyers, see our newsletter advertising statistics.
Proprietary, Dupple data
The number we can publish and others cannot
cybersecurity mentions per 10,000 tech-news headlines, Q2 2026
Cybersecurity is the most persistent topic in Dupple's news index. Its share of coverage rose every single quarter, from 24.2 to 41.6 mentions per 10,000 headlines between Q3 2025 and Q2 2026, reaching 46.8 in the latest full month, while coverage of software vulnerabilities more than quadrupled to 40.0 per 10,000 as mass-exploitation events dominated the news.
Source: Dupple news radar, September 17, 2026. Share of coverage = headlines containing "cybersecurity" (case-insensitive) divided by all headlines indexed that quarter, measured only in the mature window (July 2025 onward) when the index reached full volume.
The short version
Key takeaways
- The global average cost of a data breach hit a record 4.99 million dollars in 2026.Source: IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026
- One in four malicious breaches is now AI-enabled, a 56% increase over the prior year, and those breaches cost about 6 million dollars on average.Source: IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026
- US internet-crime losses reported to the FBI exceeded 16.6 billion dollars across 859,532 complaints in 2024, a 33% jump in losses.Source: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2024 Internet Crime Report
- Ransomware was present in 44% of breaches analyzed, up from 32% the year before.Source: Verizon, 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report
- Ransomware operators took in more than 820 million dollars in on-chain payments in 2025, yet only about 28% of victims paid, an all-time low.Source: Chainalysis, 2026 Crypto Crime Report
- Exploitation of vulnerabilities as an initial access route for breaches reached 20%, a 34% increase over the prior year.Source: Verizon, 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report
- More than 97% of identity attacks are password attacks, and over half of attacks with known motives are extortion or ransomware.Source: Microsoft, Digital Defense Report 2025
- The global cybersecurity workforce gap reached 4.76 million people in 2024, against an active workforce of about 5.47 million.Source: ISC2, 2024 Cybersecurity Workforce Study
- Dupple data: cybersecurity is the most persistent topic in our tech-news index, rising to 41.6 mentions per 10,000 headlines, while vulnerability coverage more than quadrupled to 40.0.Source: Dupple news radar (September 2026)
- Dupple data: of the 464 security-related open-source projects we track, the fastest climbers are tools for securing AI agents and MCP servers, the same frontier where Anthropic disrupted an AI-driven extortion ring.Source: Dupple GitHub trending tracker (September 2026)
Proprietary, Dupple news radar
Cybersecurity coverage climbed every quarter
We publish a daily security newsletter, so our radar reads the security news firehose to build it. That gives us a clean view of where attention is going. The chart shows how many headlines out of every 10,000 we indexed mentioned cybersecurity, by quarter. Unlike most topics we track, it did not spike and fade; it rose in every single quarter.
cybersecurity mentions per 10,000 tech-news headlines
Complete calendar quarters only. The most recent full month, August 2026, reached 46.8 mentions per 10,000 headlines, the highest yet.
Source: Dupple news radar, September 17, 2026. Method: case-insensitive substring match of "cybersecurity" against tech-news headlines, divided by all headlines indexed that quarter. We report share of coverage rather than raw counts because our index scaled to full volume in mid-2025; comparisons are limited to the mature window (July 2025 onward).
Proprietary, Dupple news radar
The topics driving the surge
Reading beneath the headline term, five cyber topics carry the coverage. Vulnerabilities are the standout: their share of coverage more than quadrupled in a year as one mass-exploitation campaign after another hit the wire. Ransomware and data breaches stayed high but roughly flat, and phishing held steady.
| Cyber topic | Headlines, past year | Per 10,000 | Q3 2025 to Q2 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cybersecurity | 2,349 | 36.4 | 24.2 to 41.6, rising |
| Vulnerability | 1,902 | 29.5 | 9.5 to 40.0, rising fast |
| Ransomware | 1,967 | 30.5 | 30.9 to 23.4 |
| Data breach | 1,839 | 28.5 | 21.0 to 22.6 |
| Phishing | 1,248 | 19.3 | 15.6 to 19.8 |
- Dupple's Cyberpresso newsletter reaches 26,000 security subscribers at a 26% open rate, so the coverage above feeds a real security audience.
- Of the 464 security-related open-source projects in Dupple's GitHub trending tracker, the fastest climbers are agent-security and MCP-hardening tools such as AgentHound and hol-guard, not classic scanners.
Source: Dupple news radar, Dupple GitHub trending tracker, and Dupple internal audience data, September 17, 2026. Headline counts cover July 2025 to August 2026; the trending tracker follows open-source repositories moving through the 20 to 1,000 star range.
Industry context, sourced
Breaches keep getting more expensive, and more automated
The coverage surge above tracks a real rise in cost and complexity. These figures each name a checkable source.
- The global average data breach cost a record 4.99 million dollars in 2026.Source: IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026
- One in four malicious breaches was AI-enabled, up 56% year over year, at an average cost near 6 million dollars.Source: IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026
- The share of breaches involving a third party doubled to 30%, up from 15%.Source: Verizon, 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report
- The global median attacker dwell time rose to 14 days, from 11 the year before.Source: Mandiant (Google Cloud), M-Trends 2026
Industry context, sourced
Ransomware and extortion still dominate
The most damaging category is also the most financially motivated. Our own coverage keeps ransomware near the top of the security news cycle.
- Ransomware appeared in 44% of breaches studied, up from 32%.Source: Verizon, 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report
- Operators received more than 820 million dollars in on-chain ransoms in 2025, but the share of victims who paid fell to an all-time low near 28%.Source: Chainalysis, 2026 Crypto Crime Report
- Over half of attacks with a known motive, at least 52%, were extortion or ransomware.Source: Microsoft, Digital Defense Report 2025
- The latest Verizon report confirmed more than 22,000 data breaches across 145 countries, its largest dataset ever.Source: Verizon, 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report
Industry context, sourced
How attackers get in
Two doors keep opening: unpatched vulnerabilities and stolen passwords. For defenses, compare tools in our roundups of the best AI threat detection tools and the best password managers.
- Vulnerability exploitation reached 20% of initial access for breaches, up 34% year over year.Source: Verizon, 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report
- Exploits were the most common initial infection vector for the sixth straight year, at 32% of intrusions.Source: Mandiant (Google Cloud), M-Trends 2026
- Phishing and spoofing was the most reported crime type to the FBI, with 193,407 complaints in 2024, while business email compromise drove 2.77 billion dollars in losses.Source: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2024 Internet Crime Report
- More than 97% of identity attacks are password attacks, which is why passkeys and MFA matter.Source: Microsoft, Digital Defense Report 2025
Industry context, sourced
The human and AI frontier
Defenders are short-staffed just as attackers weaponize AI. It is the same frontier our security-tooling tracker is lighting up. For enterprise defense, see our CrowdStrike review and Toolradar's cybersecurity software statistics report.
- The cybersecurity workforce gap stood at 4.76 million people in 2024.Source: ISC2, 2024 Cybersecurity Workforce Study
- Anthropic disrupted an AI-driven extortion operation that used its coding agent to attack at least 17 organizations, with ransom demands that sometimes exceeded 500,000 dollars.Source: Anthropic, Detecting and countering misuse of AI: August 2025
- Global cybercrime is projected to cost the world about 10.5 trillion dollars a year in 2025, up from 3 trillion in 2015, on a widely cited research-firm estimate.Source: Cybersecurity Ventures, Cybercrime To Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025
Frequently asked questions
Common questions
What is the average cost of a data breach in 2026?
IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report puts the global average at a record 4.99 million dollars in 2026. Breaches that were AI-enabled, now one in four malicious breaches, cost closer to 6 million dollars on average.
How common is ransomware?
Verizon's 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report found ransomware present in 44% of breaches, up from 32% a year earlier. Chainalysis reports operators took in more than 820 million dollars in on-chain payments in 2025, though the share of victims who paid fell to an all-time low near 28%.
How do most attackers get in?
Two routes dominate. Vulnerability exploitation reached 20% of initial access in Verizon's 2025 report, up 34% year over year, and Mandiant found exploits the top initial vector for the sixth straight year at 32% of intrusions. Separately, Microsoft reports more than 97% of identity attacks are password attacks.
How big is the cybersecurity skills shortage?
ISC2 estimated the global cybersecurity workforce gap at 4.76 million people in 2024, against an active workforce of about 5.47 million, meaning demand still far outstrips supply.
How does Dupple measure these cybersecurity statistics?
Our proprietary figures come from Dupple's news radar, which indexes roughly a million tech articles a year to power our security newsletter, and from our GitHub trending tracker. We count how often a topic appears in headlines and express it as a share of all coverage, so the numbers are not distorted by the total volume we index. Every borrowed figure names a checkable source and deep-links to the page it came from.
Method and sources
How this data was measured
The proprietary figures on this page come from Dupple's news radar, the index that powers our security newsletter Cyberpresso, which ingests roughly one million tech articles a year. To measure a topic we count headlines that contain the term (case-insensitive) and divide by all headlines indexed in the same period, giving a share of coverage in mentions per 10,000 headlines. We report share rather than raw counts, and we limit comparisons to the mature window from July 2025 onward, because our index scaled to full volume in mid-2025 and earlier months are not comparable. Open-source project figures come from Dupple's GitHub trending tracker, which follows repositories moving through the 20 to 1,000 star range. Every external statistic names its source inline and links to the exact page or report that carries the figure; we drop any figure we cannot verify on the source page. This report was published on September 17, 2026, carries a visible last-updated date, and will be refreshed as the data changes. Byline: Louis Corneloup, Founder at Dupple.
Cite this report
Released under Creative Commons BY 4.0. Quote, link, and reuse the data with attribution to Dupple.
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External sources
- IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2024 Internet Crime Report
- Verizon, 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report
- Verizon, 2025 DBIR executive summary (PDF)
- Chainalysis, 2026 Crypto Crime Report (ransomware)
- Mandiant (Google Cloud), M-Trends 2026
- ISC2, 2024 Cybersecurity Workforce Study
- Microsoft, Digital Defense Report 2025
- Anthropic, Detecting and countering misuse of AI: August 2025
- Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime cost projection
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