Verizon 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report

The Verizon 2026 DBIR analyzes >31,000 incidents (22k+ breaches) across 145 countries and finds exploitation of vulnerabilities has become the primary initial access vector (rising to ~31% of breaches), ransomware remains highly impactful (48% of breaches), third‑party involvement and cloud misconfigurations are rapidly increasing, and adversaries are leveraging GenAI for targeting, exploit development and tooling; the report also highlights rising zero‑day usage, persistent credential abuse, and a mixture of criminal and state‑affiliated actors driving large-scale campaigns and supply‑chain attacks, with practical mitigation guidance centered on fundamentals (patching, MFA, least privilege, and third‑party risk management).