IBM 2026 X-Force Threat Index: AI-Driven Attacks are Escalating as Basic Security Gaps Leave Enterprises Exposed
IBM has released its 2026 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, revealing that cybercriminals are exploiting basic security gaps at dramatically higher rates, now accelerated by AI tools that help attackers identify weaknesses faster than ever. IBM X‑Force observed a 44% increase in attacks that began with the exploitation of public-facing applications, largely driven by missing authentication controls and AI-enabled vulnerability discovery.
Some of the key highlights of the report include:
- Active ransomware and extortion groups surged (49%) year over year, marking ecosystem fragmentation, while publicly disclosed victim counts rose roughly 12%.
- Large supply chain and third-party compromises nearly quadrupled since 2020, as attackers increasingly exploit environments where software is built and deployed or SaaS integrations.
- Vulnerability exploitation became the leading cause of attacks, accounting for 40% of incidents observed by X-Force in 2025.
“Attackers aren’t reinventing playbooks, they’re speeding them up with AI,” said Mark Hughes, Global Managing Partner for Cybersecurity Services, IBM. “The core issue is the same: businesses are overwhelmed by software vulnerabilities. The difference now is speed. With so many vulnerabilities requiring no credentials, attackers can bypass humans and move straight from scanning to impact. Security leaders need to shift to a more proactive approach, using agentic-powered threat detection and response to identify gaps and catch threats before they escalate.”
AI’s Mounting Identity Problem
Infostealer malware led to the exposure of over 300,000 ChatGPT credentials in 2025, signaling that AI platforms have reached the same credential risk as other core enterprise SaaS solutions.
Compromised chatbot credentials create AI-specific risks beyond simple account access. Attackers can manipulate outputs, exfiltrate sensitive data or inject malicious prompts. This underscores the need to assess enterprise-wide AI adoption and enforce strong authentication, and conditional access controls.
AI, Leaked Tooling Lower Barriers to Ransomware Ecosystem
In 2025, X-Force observed a 49% increase in active ransomware groups compared to the prior year, as smaller, transient operators whose low volume campaigns complicate attribution. This trend is accelerated by collapsing barriers to entry as threat actors reuse leaked tooling, rely on established playbooks and increasingly tap AI to automate operations. As multimodal AI models mature, X-Force expects adversaries to automate complex tasks like reconnaissance and advanced ransomware attacks, driving faster-moving, more adaptive threats.
Pressure on Supply Chains Poised to Grow
X-Force identified a nearly 4X increase in large supply chain or third-party compromises since 2020, mainly driven by attackers exploiting trust relationships and CI/CD automation across development workflows and SaaS integrations. With AI-powered coding tools accelerating software creation, and occasionally introducing unvetted code, the pressure on pipelines and open‑source ecosystems is expected to grow in 2026.
This rise is also attributed to the blurring line between nation-state and financially motivated actors. As tactics and techniques spread across underground forums, and AI streamlines reconnaissance and exploitation, techniques once reserved for nation-state actors are now being adopted by financially motivated groups.
Additional findings from the 2026 report include:
- AI accelerating attacker lifecycle. Attackers are using AI to speed research, analyze large data sets and iterate on attack paths in real time. For example, North Korean IT worker schemes are using AI to scale operations, including AI-driven image manipulation for synthetic identities and translation tools to interact across global marketplaces.
- Security fundamentals still lacking. X-Force Red penetration tests reveal persistent weaknesses in credential hygiene and software configuration, with misconfigured access controls as the most common entry point for these engagements.
- Manufacturing tops the target list for the fifth year. The sector accounted for 27.7% of incidents observed by X-Force, with data theft being the most common.
- North America emerged as the most‑attacked region. Accounting for 29% of total cases observed by X-Force, and up from 24% in 2024, North America became the most attacked region for the first time in 6 years.
Source: IBM
Precisely Expands Data Integrity Suite with New AI Agents for Enhanced Data Quality, Data Enrichment, and Location Intelligence
Precisely has announced new Data Quality, Data Enrichment, and Location Intelligence agents for the Precisely Data Integrity Suite. Working with the suite’s Gio AI Assistant, the agents automate complex data preparation tasks—such as normalization, standardization, rule creation, and enrichment—through conversational interaction. By combining AI-driven recommendations with human oversight, the tools help organizations improve productivity while maintaining transparency and control, ensuring data remains accurate, consistent, and context-rich to support AI, analytics, and automation initiatives.
By automating high-impact data processes, the AI agents help directly address:
- Rule recommendation and creation: Identify gaps and generate data quality rules based on patterns, structure, metadata, and user input.
- Normalization and standardization: Detect and harmonize inconsistent data across sources without manual rule writing.
- Address verification and geocoding: Verify and geocode address data for consistent, trustworthy location information.
- Data enrichment: Apply relevant attributes to your data to add real-world context and improve completeness.
- Working alongside the Data Integrity Suite’s Gio AI Assistant, these agents help users initiate and guide tasks through a conversational experience, with clear recommendations and previews of proposed changes. Built-in approvals maintain control, resulting in a scalable, trustworthy approach to operationalizing data integrity.
“As organizations move from AI experimentation to enterprise-scale deployment, foundational data work can no longer be manual or reactive,” said Ulf Viney, Executive Vice President, Engineering, Support & Operations at Precisely. “With these new AI agents in the Precisely Data Integrity Suite, we are applying AI to automate and elevate the data integrity process itself by combining intelligent automation with the transparency and governance our customers require.”
Today’s release builds on Precisely’s momentum in delivering Agentic-Ready Data: the highest-quality data that is integrated, governed, and enriched to power autonomous AI systems with confidence. These AI agents follow other recent innovations, including the Data Integrity Suite’s Gio AI Assistant, Data Catalog Agent, and AI and Agentic Fabric. Together, these advancements help organizations turn AI ambition into measurable business outcomes without sacrificing choice, control, or governance.
Source: Precisely
BMC Signs Five-Year Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS to Accelerate Intelligent Automation at Global Scale
BMC has announced that it has signed a strategic collaboration agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help companies orchestrate application workflows and data pipelines at scale. This collaboration, combining BMC’s expertise in intelligent automation with the scale and agility of AWS, will enhance how enterprises orchestrate data and workflows, unlocking new levels of agility and innovation.
Customers will be able to:
- Modernize faster and unlock new business value across AWS environments with intelligent guidance, automated insights, and context-aware recommendations using BMC gen AI capabilities, including Jett, BMC’s generative AI-powered advisor in the Control-M platform.
- Accelerate customer value with BMC’s data management and agentic AI capabilities delivered natively on AWS.
- Accelerate modernization and growth by integrating BMC’s capabilities with AWS services to enable intelligent unified orchestration across hybrid, cloud, data, and AI workloads.
- The Control-M platform from BMC is available in AWS Marketplace and continues to support customers’ end-to-end unified orchestration of data pipelines across complex hybrid infrastructure.
“This five‑year strategic collaboration agreement with AWS reinforces our commitment to helping customers modernize and innovate with confidence,” said Brian Jones, Global VP Strategic Partnerships, BMC. “By combining BMC’s expertise in intelligent automation with the scale and agility of AWS, we’re empowering enterprises to unlock the full value of their data, streamline operations, and accelerate digital transformation.”
“This collaboration empowers organizations to modernize mission-critical workloads with the security, performance, and AI capabilities needed to drive business outcomes,” said Allison Johnson, Director of Americas Technology Partnerships, AWS. “Together, we’re delivering cloud solutions that help customers transform faster and unlock new value from their data.”
BMC and AWS have a long-standing relationship in addition to this SCA agreement. BMC continues to expand its global SaaS footprint and recently announced that the Control-M SaaS solution is available on the AWS Sydney Region in Australia, as well in Ireland, Canada, and the U.S., supporting the global growing demand for data residency, performance, and resiliency.
Source: BMC
Mainframe Market Forecast Shows Steady Growth
A new market analysis from Market Research Future projects continued growth for the global mainframe market as enterprises modernize infrastructure and expand support for data-intensive workloads. The report estimates the market will increase from $3.45 billion in 2025 to $9.34 billion by 2035, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.27%. The report is titled “Mainframe Modernization Services Market.”
According to the report, the mainframe’s enduring role in secure, high-volume transaction processing continues to drive investment across industries such as banking, insurance, healthcare, and government. At the same time, organizations are extending mainframes beyond traditional workloads to support AI, big-data analytics, and hybrid-cloud operations, reflecting a broader shift toward integrated enterprise architectures rather than isolated legacy systems.
The study also highlights several technology trends influencing adoption. One of the most notable is the rise of Mainframe-as-a-Service (MFaaS), which enables organizations to access mainframe capabilities through managed or cloud-based models, reducing the operational burden of maintaining on-premises infrastructure. In addition, the integration of machine learning, anomaly-detection systems, and data-governance platforms is expanding the value of mainframe environments within modern data strategies.
Digital transformation initiatives remain a primary growth driver. As enterprises virtualize workloads and pursue greater operational efficiency, mainframes are increasingly positioned as the backbone for large-scale data processing, system reliability, and regulatory compliance. The report also points to 5G connectivity and real-time data processing as emerging factors that may further strengthen demand for high-performance computing platforms.
Regionally, North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific continue to lead mainframe adoption due to their established enterprise IT infrastructures and early adoption of advanced technologies. However, emerging economies are gradually expanding their mainframe presence as digitalization initiatives accelerate and organizations invest in more resilient data platforms.
The competitive landscape includes major vendors and technology providers such as IBM, BMC, Rocket Software, Precisely, Software AG, and UNICOM Systems. These companies are focusing on product innovation, partnerships, and expanded services to support organizations modernizing long-standing mainframe environments.
Looking ahead, the report suggests that mainframes will remain a central component of enterprise computing strategies, particularly as organizations integrate them with hybrid cloud architectures and advanced analytics platforms. As data volumes grow and security demands intensify, the combination of scalability, reliability, and performance continues to position the mainframe as a strategic platform for mission-critical operations.
Source: Market Research Future
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