Report by Palo Alto Unit 42
2026 Global Incident Response Report
8 FINDINGSPublished Feb 17, 2026
View Original Report →Key Findings
Many organizations run 50 or more security products.
Security OperationsTool SprawlSecurity Tools
Identity weaknesses play a material role in nearly 90% of investigated incidents.
IdentityAccess Management
Misconfigurations or gaps in security coverage materially enable attacks in over 90% of incidents.
MisconfigurationGaps In Security Coverage
Encryption-based extortion declined by 15% compared to the previous year.
EncryptionExtortion
In the fastest cases, attackers moved from initial access to data exfiltration in 72 minutes, four times faster than the previous year.
Initial AccessData Exfiltration
Attackers leverage third-party SaaS applications in 23% of incidents.
SaaS
87% of intrusions involve activity across multiple attack surfaces.
Attack Surface
Nearly 48% of incidents include browser-based activity.
Browser Security