Report by SonicWall
The state of financial services cybersecurity in 2026
Key Findings
Malware activity averaged 39,341 hits per firewall in the first half of 2026, giving financial services the second-highest per-device malware intensity of any industry, behind only healthcare.
The GoodTech Telnet Server Buffer Overflow vulnerability generated 42.2 million detection events in the financial services industry in the first half of 2026.
Log4Shell generated 35.6 million detection events in the first half of 2026 in the financial services industry, more than two years after disclosure.
Ten ransomware families were active against the financial services sector in the first half of 2026, including REvil (Sodinokibi) and Prometheus.
Financial services experienced more than double the cross-sector average of cyberattack attempts per device in the first half of 2026.
Financial services saw 132,378 IPS hits per device in the first half of 2026, the highest attack intensity of any industry SonicWall tracks.