UAE faces growing cyber risks as AI transforms attacks and defence

Dubai: Marking Cyber Security month, Microsoft released its 2026 Digital Defence Report, highlighting how artificial intelligence, identity-based attacks and increasingly interconnected digital ecosystems are reshaping the global cybersecurity landscape.

Drawing on Microsoft’s visibility across the global digital ecosystem and more than 165 trillion security signals each day, the report identifies three shifts defining cybersecurity in 2026: AI is accelerating both attacks and defence; identity remains the primary way attackers gain access to organisations; and cyber incidents are increasingly creating consequences beyond the original victim.

The findings carry particular relevance for the UAE as the country continues to scale AI adoption across government and industry.

In the first half of 2026, Microsoft data showed the UAE ranked sixth globally among countries where customers were most frequently impacted by cyber activity, and second among countries in the Middle East and Africa.

The data reinforces a broader shift taking place across the UAE’s cybersecurity landscape: as AI becomes more deeply embedded into government services, enterprise operations and critical systems, cyber resilience must evolve alongside it.

That shift is already informing how Microsoft is working with national partners. Microsoft, the UAE Cyber Security Council and Core42 announced plans to deploy MDASH, Microsoft’s AI-powered cybersecurity capability, across UAE government entities. The collaboration is designed to help security teams identify vulnerabilities, prioritise risk and respond to emerging threats with greater speed and scale, while supporting sovereign security, privacy and operational-resilience requirements.

Yazan Khasawneh, Director of Cyber Security at Microsoft UAE, said, “The UAE is entering a phase in which AI is becoming part of the operating model of government and business. Cybersecurity therefore cannot be treated as a separate layer added after transformation takes place. It has to be designed into the way organisations adopt AI, manage identities, protect data and maintain continuity from the outset. The latest Digital Defence Report shows why this matters, threats are moving faster and becoming more interconnected. Our focus is to help organisations build the security and resilience they need to innovate with confidence.”

Microsoft’s 2026 Digital Defence Report finds that AI is changing the dynamics on both sides of cybersecurity. Threat actors are using AI to operate more quickly and at greater scale, while defenders are increasingly using AI to detect, investigate and disrupt threats faster. At the same time, the expansion of AI systems introduces new data, identities and access points that organisations must secure.

Despite the growing sophistication of attacks, the report finds that identity remains one of the most important lines of defence. Attackers continue to exploit accounts, credentials and people to gain access, making stronger authentication and protection of high-value identities critical priorities for organisations.

The report also highlights the increasingly interconnected nature of cyber risk. A compromised identity, supplier, platform or service provider can create consequences across organisations, sectors and borders, reinforcing the importance of coordinated threat intelligence, public-private collaboration and operational resilience.

The report recommends that organisations focus on three priorities: protecting identities, responding faster and building resilience. This includes strengthening authentication, reducing reliance on passwords, accelerating detection and response, regularly exercising incident-response plans and designing systems so that critical operations can continue through disruption.