Government Cybersecurity Statistics

Government services are the primary target in 38.8% of all claimed hactivism attacks.

1.6% of public sector agencies report broad AI deployment across departments.

57% of public sector agencies are actively exploring and learning about AI.

16% of public sector agencies are piloting small AI projects.

49% of security leaders in government, defense, and critical services cite ensuring data integrity and preventing tampering in transit as their single biggest challenge when transferring information across classified or coalition networks.

45% of security leaders in government, defense, and critical services cite managing identity and authentication across multiple domains as the biggest challenge to securing access to mission data.

84% of government IT security leaders agree that sharing sensitive data across networks heightens their cyber risk.

53% of government IT security leaders rely on manual data transfer processes.

78% of security leaders in government, defense, and critical services cite outdated infrastructure as a primary source of cyber vulnerability.

In Q3 2025, commerce received 88% of crawler traffic, while the Public Sector received 96%, and Education had the highest fetcher volume at 77%

69% of cyber incidents in 2024 targeted central governments in the EU.

The government sector reported 28 ransomware attacks in Q3 2025.

The healthcare, government, and technology industries together represented 53% of all publicly disclosed ransomware activity during Q3 2025.

10% of organizations in the government sector experienced ransomware incidents annually.

23.08% of government organizations reported limited visibility into their entire environment.

The government sector had an average ransom payment just below $7.5 million

In the UAE, 30% of respondents don’t trust government services with their identity data.

27% of UK IT leaders in the public sector say they've adopted email security training.

44% of UK IT leaders in the public sector say they've adopted MFA.

Government, Non-Profit, and Telecoms sectors have the weakest protection against bots.

56% of Government bodies in the UK reported a breach in the past year alone.

92% of Government bodies in the UK reported an email-related breach.

26% of UK IT leaders in the public sector say they've adopted AI detection.

40% of students believe the responsibility for stopping AI-powered fraud lies with government agencies.

Government organisations are bracing for the steepest rise (73%) in insider threats.

Unapproved GenAI usage rates are highest in technology (40%), financial services (32%), and government (38%).

65% of organisations in local government were affected by ransomware.

The government sector experienced a 71% year-over-year increase in overall interactive intrusions and a 185% year-over-year increase in targeted intrusion activity.

36% of those in the public sector indicated they are actively evaluating AI tools.

Financial services and the public sector currently report the lowest adoption rates of AI tools, at 21% and 16%, respectively.