DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia absorbed half of all cyberattacks recorded across the Gulf in the first half of 2026, with the UAE alone accounting for 35% of incidents, according to a study by information security firm Positive Technologies.
The UAE emerged as the region's most targeted country, while Saudi Arabia recorded 15% of incidents on its own, the Khaleej Times reported. Together, the two nations made up 50% of all recorded Gulf cyberattacks. Iran followed with 17% of incidents.
Nearly all of the activity, 96%, occurred in the first quarter alone. Researchers linked the spike to heightened malicious activity during the peak of regional conflict earlier in the year, with many attacks targeting government and state organizations.
State actors accelerated their efforts following regional tensions, according to Alexey Lukatsky, chief evangelist officer at Positive Technologies. Speaking on the sidelines of the Gisec Global cybersecurity conference, Lukatsky said the UAE and Saudi Arabia drew heavy attention due to their range of sectors, including IT, telecom and banking firms.
Government agencies bore the brunt of successful attacks, accounting for 27% across the Gulf. Attacks with no specific sector focus followed at 23%. The industrial sector ranked third at 17%, with half of those incidents hitting organizations in Saudi Arabia.
Lukatsky identified three tactics that actors have relied on most over the past two years: exploiting software and hardware vulnerabilities, deploying malware boosted by artificial intelligence, and phishing through email, WhatsApp and other messaging apps.
Vulnerability exploitation was the leading attack method in the region, used in 38% of incidents. The tactic appeared across nearly every country covered in the research. Positive Technologies attributed the trend to continued reliance on legacy Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems and the relative ease of carrying out such attacks.
Malware deployment ranked second at 31%, followed by social engineering at 27%.
