GoKawiilReport: UAE, Saudi Arabia See Rising Rate of Cyberattacks Amid Regional Conflict
Threat intelligence firm Positive Technologies found that the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran accounted for about 67% of Middle East cyberattacks detected via open-source monitoring of Dark Web forums and Telegram channels. Check Point Software Technologies data cited separately shows organizations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia faced roughly 2,700 attacks per week over the past six months, versus a global average of about 2,300.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
Analyst Darya Lavrova of Positive Technologies suggests that heightened regional conflict is driving activity from hacktivists and politically aligned groups, while financially motivated criminals continue to exploit expanding digital infrastructure separately. The UAE and Saudi Arabia's rapid digital transformation may be widening their attack surface, making both nations more attractive targets regardless of the underlying motive for attacks. Because much of this data relies on open-source and Dark Web monitoring, the true scale of incidents could be significantly higher than reported.
- UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran together account for about two-thirds of detected Middle East cyberattacks.
- UAE and Saudi organizations face roughly 17% more weekly attacks than the global average, per Check Point data.
- Analysts link the surge to both regional conflict-driven hacktivism and separate financially motivated cybercrime.
YubiKey 5C NFC Security Key — With cyberattacks surging across the Middle East's digital infrastructure, strong hardware-based authentication is a practical defense for businesses and individuals alike. The YubiKey 5C NFC lets you add phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication to accounts and enterprise systems in seconds. It's a simple, durable way to harden your own security posture amid rising financially-motivated and politically-driven attacks.
See YubiKey 5C NFC Security Key on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: darkreading.com — Robert Lemos, 2026-09-23
Published there as: “UAE, Saudi Arabia Face Onslaught of Increasingly Complex Cyberattacks”
Read the original report → The summary and analysis above are GoKawiil's own, written from reporting by the source above. Facts and quotes belong to the original publisher.