Cyber attacks grew 48% year-on-year in September

Companies worldwide experienced an average of 2803 cyber attacks per week during September, according to Check Point Software. The security company’s Global Threat Intelligence insights for the month found that total attacks were up 16% month-on-month and 48% year-on-year.

The education sector remains the most targeted globally, averaging 6656 weekly attacks per organisation. This represents a 59% year-on-year increase. The telecom sector ranked second with 3483 weekly attacks per organisation (up 29%), followed by government with 3443 (up 37%).

APAC was the third most targeted region globally behind Latin America and Africa, with the average APAC organisation seeing 3593 attacks weekly, the figures indicate.

Rapidly expanding use of generative AI among employees of organisations is increasing the exposure surface, Check Point added. The figures suggest that in September, one in every 39 enterprise GenAI prompts posed a high risk of sensitive data usage, affecting 89% of organisations that regularly use the tools. A further 14% of prompts contained potentially sensitive information. This is significant in light of the finding that the average user generated 131 GenAI prompts during the month. Each organisation also used an average of eight tools.

Check Point said its research suggests that network and IT Infrastructure data appeared in GenAI prompts at 71% of organisations during the month, followed by financial data at 70%, legal and regulatory data at 68%, employee and HR data at 62% and personally identifiable information at 60%. Business services recorded the highest-risk GenAI prompt exposure rate at 4.9%, or one in every 20 prompts.

As well as a sharp increase in attack volumes, the data show an increase in the prevalence of phishing attacks, Check Point said. Email remains a key phishing attack vector, with one in every 91 emails classified as phishing in September. Among phishing emails, 81% contained links and 11% had attachments. Ransomware also remains well above last year’s level, the company said, with 824 ransomware attacks reported during the month. This represents a 53% increase from September 2025.

Business services was the most targeted industry, accounting for 31.3% of reported victims. Other industries under fire include consumer goods and services (15.2% of victims) and industrial manufacturing (11%). APAC accounted for 17% of reported incidents.

The most prevalent ransomware group during the month was The Gentlemen, responsible for 13% of published attacks. This was followed by Qilin (9%) and Akira (5%). A further 80 extortion groups reported ransomware attacks last month.

Check Point data research manager Omer Dembinsky said the statistics demonstrate that cyber risk is continuing to increase in both volume and breadth.

More details can be found in the Check Point Research blog.

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