ESET Threat Report H1 2026

ESET Research

Threat Reports

A view of the H1 2026 threat landscape as seen by ESET telemetry and from the perspective of ESET threat detection and research experts.

08 Jul 2026 • 2 min. read

The first half of 2026 shows how attackers continue to improve the efficiency and scalability of their operations. Rather than relying on entirely new methods and tools, they are quickly adapting established techniques to new platforms, technologies, and user behaviors.

Artificial intelligence is playing a growing role in this development. In H1 2026, ESET analyzed nearly 900,000 AI skills – small functional components used by AI agents – and identified tens of thousands of suspicious and thousands of outright malicious instances. The number of AI skills within this new ecosystem is growing rapidly “as we speak”, further expanding the attack surface.

AI is also beginning to appear within malware itself. Shortly after the emergence of...

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