Bitdefender, a global cybersecurity leader, today released the 2026 Cybersecurity Assessment Report, an annual report based on an independent survey and analysis of cybersecurity professionals revealing the most urgent concerns, key challenges, and threat perceptions shaping business security. The report is based on a survey of over 1,200 IT and security professionals, split equally between practitioners and decision-makers across France, Germany, Italy, Singapore, the U.K., and the U.S.
47.4% lack full visibility into employee AI tool usage; 57.8% of managers believe full visibility vs. 45.9% of practitioners.
45% identify internal AI systems and LLMs as primary security concern.
55.2% experienced breach suppression, told to keep incidents confidential.
59.2% confirmed experiencing AI-driven social engineering attacks.
76.1% would switch vendors due to data sovereignty concerns.
55.9% rank self-mutating malware as top AI-driven threat.
Nearly half of organizations lack full visibility into employee AI tool usage. While 51.8% report full visibility into sanctioned and unsanctioned AI usage, 47.4% acknowledge only partial or no visibility. The numbers tell a more troubling story at the leadership level: 57.8% of managers believe they have full visibility compared to only 45.9% of practitioners, suggesting leaders may be significantly underestimating their organization's true exposure. Despite ranking AI systems as their top security concern, 20.4% rated employees leaking sensitive data into public LLMs as a low or extremely low risk.
More than half (55.2%) of respondents who experienced a security incident in the past 12 months stated they were told to keep it confidential despite believing it should have been reported. While slightly down from 57.6% in 2025, the figure remains dramatically higher than the 42% reported in 2023. The U.S. led all regions at 68.6%, followed by Germany and U.K. both at 57.2%. Managers (56.8%) and practitioners (53.5%) reported similar pressure to stay silent.
Cloud infrastructure or application breaches topped the list at 41.8%, followed by BEC resulting in financial or data loss at 35.9%, and ransomware at 25.6%. U.S. organizations stood out sharply, with 54.7% reporting BEC incidents. 59.2% confirmed experiencing AI-driven social engineering attacks. The top barriers to reducing the attack surface are high overhead in maintaining hardening rules (38%), fear of operational disruption (35.4%), and resource constraints (34.6%). 48.8% of U.S. organizations reported marked visibility gaps.
Over three-quarters (76.1%) say they would likely switch cybersecurity vendors due to data sovereignty concerns, with the U.S. leading at 87%. AI-related threats are viewed as high or extreme risk across the board, with self-mutating malware topping the list at 55.9%, followed by employees leaking sensitive data into public LLMs (53.5%), AI-driven evasion techniques (52.5%), and deepfakes used in fraud (51.9%). Agentic AI expanding the attack surface emerged as a regional flashpoint in Singapore (64%) and the U.S. (61.6%).
Andrei Florescu, president and general manager of Bitdefender Business Solutions Group, stated: "The expanding attack surface, the rapid proliferation of AI-powered threats, and persistent operational pressures are forcing organizations to rethink how they approach security from the ground up. The findings make clear that modern security strategies must go beyond reactive defenses to continuously reduce risk, govern AI adoption, and ensure compliance across an environment where adversaries are faster, more adaptive, and increasingly automated."
About Bitdefender
Bitdefender is a cybersecurity leader delivering best-in-class threat prevention, detection, and response solutions worldwide. Guardian over millions of consumer, enterprise, and government environments, Bitdefender is one of the industry's most trusted experts for eliminating threats, protecting privacy, digital identity, and data, and enabling cyber resilience. With deep investments in research and development, Bitdefender Labs discovers hundreds of new threats each minute and validates billions of threat queries daily. The company has pioneered breakthrough innovations in antimalware, IoT security, behavioral analytics, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 2001, Bitdefender has customers in 170+ countries with offices around the world.
