What CrowdStrike’s 2026 Threat Hunting Report means for your security strategy

Cyber threats are evolving and accelerating at quite a pace. 

According to CrowdStrike’s 2026 Threat Hunting Report, attackers are becoming faster, more connected and increasingly adept at exploiting the trusted systems businesses depend on every day. Rather than relying solely on traditional vulnerabilities, adversaries are now abusing trust itself – targeting AI systems, cloud environments, identity platforms, software supply chains and legitimate authentication workflows. 

The implication for organisations is clear: reactive security is no longer enough. 

To stay ahead, security teams need visibility across their entire environment, faster detection capabilities and proactive threat hunting that uncovers suspicious activity before it becomes a serious incident. 

 

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AI is now a tool, target and force multiplier

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a central part of the threat landscape. 

The report highlights how threat actors are using AI to generate payloads and shell commands, exploit AI infrastructure and abuse enterprise large language models (LLMs). In one LLM-Jacking campaign, attackers generated almost 200,000 API requests in just two minutes – a stark example of how quickly AI resources can be abused at scale. 

At the same time, CrowdStrike OverWatch found that AI agent-triggered detection leads surfaced threats at 2.5 times the rate of human-triggered activity. 

For security teams, that creates a new challenge. As AI adoption grows across the business, distinguishing between legitimate AI-driven activity and genuine threats becomes increasingly complex.

 

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Exploitation windows are shrinking

When a new vulnerability is disclosed, attackers aren’t waiting around. 

CrowdStrike found that during the first half of 2026, 88% of observed exploitation involving vulnerabilities with a public proof of concept occurred within 48 hours of disclosure. Some threat actors moved even faster, exploiting critical vulnerabilities within 24 hours. 

That’s a significant shift. 

Security teams now have far less time to assess risk, prioritise remediation and deploy mitigations. Vulnerability management can no longer operate in isolation – it needs to work hand in hand with threat intelligence, asset visibility and incident response. 

 

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Software supply chains are becoming a prime target

Attackers are increasingly looking beyond end-user environments and moving upstream into the software development ecosystem. 

The report highlights cases where adversaries poisoned trusted AI framework packages and compromised hundreds of software dependencies in a single day to steal credentials and gain access to cloud environments. 

What does it mean for you and other organisations? It reinforces the need to secure the entire software development lifecycle. Monitoring open-source dependencies, validating package integrity and extending visibility into developer tools, repositories and build environments are no longer optional – they’re essential. 

 

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Cloud-focused attacks continue to rise

As organisations move more applications, data and AI workloads into the cloud, attackers are following closely behind. 

CrowdStrike observed a 171% increase in cloud-conscious eCrime activity, including credential theft, cryptomining, LLM abuse and digital asset theft. 

Cloud environments offer enormous business benefits, but they also create new opportunities for attackers to hide within legitimate activity. 

That’s why continuous visibility across identities, workloads, configurations and user behaviour is critical. Your security teams need to spot unusual access patterns, monitor privilege changes and identify suspicious activity before it escalates. 

 

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Trusted authentication is becoming an attack vector

One of the most striking findings from the report is the growing abuse of legitimate authentication workflows. 

Rather than relying on malware, attackers are increasingly exploiting trusted login processes to gain access to SaaS and cloud environments. CrowdStrike reported a 15-fold increase in device code phishing attempts, while vishing-related (voice phishing) intrusions doubled during the first half of 2026. 

In one case, an attacker progressed from account compromise to data theft in under five minutes. 

These attacks highlight why identity security has become a fundamental part of cyber resilience. Multi-factor authentication remains important, but your organisation should also consider phishing-resistant authentication methods, conditional access controls, behavioural analytics and rapid session revocation capabilities. 

 

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What should organisations prioritise?

The report paints a picture of a threat landscape defined by speed, scale and the abuse of trusted systems. 

To strengthen resilience, you should focus on: 

• Improving visibility across endpoints, identities, cloud environments, SaaS platforms, AI systems and developer tools. 

• Prioritising vulnerabilities based on exploitability, exposure and active threat intelligence. 

• Strengthening identity security with phishing-resistant controls and behavioural monitoring. 

• Securing AI infrastructure, model access and enterprise LLM usage. 

• Monitoring software dependencies and developer workflows for signs of compromise. 

• Investing in proactive threat hunting to uncover hidden threats before they become incidents. 

 

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Moving from reactive defence to proactive threat hunting

The biggest takeaway from CrowdStrike’s 2026 Threat Hunting Report is simple: attackers are moving faster than many traditional security processes can keep up with. 

They’re building attack paths that span identities, cloud platforms, AI systems, software supply chains and endpoints – often blending into legitimate activity along the way. 

Proactive threat hunting helps close that gap. 

By combining real-time visibility, intelligence-led investigations and expert analysis, organisations can identify suspicious behaviour earlier, reduce attacker dwell time and prevent threats from reaching critical assets. 

The question isn’t whether attackers will continue to evolve – they will. The question is whether your security strategy can keep pace. 

Now is a good time to assess how effectively your security stack can detect, investigate and respond to threats across your entire environment – from endpoints and identities to cloud workloads, AI platforms and software supply chains. Because when attackers are measured in hours, every minute matters. 

 

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