2026 Attack Landscape Report: How Threat Actors Tailor Tactics to Their Targets
Data from nearly 800K attacks shows how threat actors modify their approach to each target, exploiting the trusted relationships and routines already in place.
Email attacks are often discussed as if they arrive at random—a numbers game played at scale, where volume alone determines who gets hit. The data in this report tells a different story.
Drawing on nearly 800,000 real attacks across more than 4,600 organizations, the 2026 Attack Landscape Report is a data-driven analysis of phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and vendor email compromise (VEC). It examines how threat actors execute attacks and how they calibrate their approach to the operational context of their target—the org's size, industry, employee roles, regional business norms, and security infrastructure.
The findings converge on a single operational reality: modern attacks exploit trusted relationships, normal business workflows, and the gaps that static defenses can't close to manipulate employees and infiltrate organizations.
What the data shows:
The phishing playbook is environment-aware. Phishing tactics calibrate to the target environment, with evasion techniques, lure types, and brand pretexts all shifting based on the operational profile.
BEC looks fundamentally different at scale. As organizations grow, attackers shift from impersonating executives to impersonating employees—matching the identity type to how trust actually works at that scale.
VEC technique selection follows cost-benefit logic. Impersonation is the default, and account compromise is the upgrade, deployed where impersonation alone won't survive scrutiny.
Fill out the form to get your copy today.
After viewing this resource, you are eligible for 1 CPE credit through ISC2.
