Check Point Research says organisations worldwide faced an average of 2,803 cyber attacks per week in September 2026, a 16% increase month-on-month and a 48% rise year-on-year.
The threat intelligence unit of Check Point Software Technologies said its September data showed increasing pressure across several areas, including higher overall attack volumes, more phishing, elevated ransomware activity, and greater exposure of sensitive information linked to enterprise use of generative AI tools.
“September’s data shows cyber risk increasing in both volume and breadth,” said Omer Dembinsky, Data Research Manager at Check Point Research. “With attacks rising across every region, phishing becoming more frequent, ransomware remaining elevated and GenAI use expanding alongside sensitive-data exposure, security teams cannot rely on fragmented defences. They need prevention-first protection that combines visibility, control and automation across network, cloud, endpoint, email and AI usage to stop threats before they disrupt operations or expose sensitive information.”
Education was the most targeted sector, averaging 6,656 weekly attacks per organisation, up 59% year-on-year and 24% compared with August, according to the report. Telecommunications ranked second at 3,483 weekly attacks per organisation, up 29% year-on-year, followed by government at 3,443, up 37%.
By region, Latin America recorded the highest volume, averaging 3,813 weekly attacks per organisation, up 35% year-on-year. Africa averaged 3,701 weekly attacks, and APAC 3,593. Europe showed the fastest growth, with attacks up 61% compared with September 2025, while North America rose 50%.
The report also examined generative AI-related data exposure in enterprise environments. It said one in every 39 enterprise GenAI prompts posed a high risk of sensitive data leakage, affecting 89% of organisations that regularly use GenAI tools, while a further 14% of prompts contained potentially sensitive information. Check Point Research reported the average user generated 131 GenAI prompts during September and each organisation used an average of eight tools.
Categories of information appearing in prompts included network and IT infrastructure data (71% of organisations), financial data (70%), legal and regulatory data (68%), employee and HR data (62%), and personally identifiable information (60%), the report said.
Email remained a major attack vector, with 1.1% of emails classified as phishing in September, up from 0.89% in August, according to Check Point Research. It said 81% of phishing emails contained links and 11% contained attachments. North America recorded the highest phishing rate at 1.26%.
Ransomware activity also increased, with 824 ransomware attacks reported in September, a 53% increase compared with September 2025, the report said. Business services accounted for 31.3% of reported victims, followed by consumer goods and services at 15.2% and industrial manufacturing at 11.0%.
North America accounted for 46% of reported ransomware incidents, followed by Europe at 25% and APAC at 17%, according to the report. Check Point Research said the ransomware group “The Gentlemen” was the most prevalent in September, linked to 13% of published attacks, followed by Qilin at 9% and Akira at 5%.
More information is available on the Check Point Research blog.
