Fortinet Warns Of Escalating Cloud Threats As Attacks Accelerate

(MENAFN- Mid-East Info) The 2026 Cloud-Native Threat Landscape Report Reveals 2.3 Billion Brute-Force Attempts Worldwide Borderless Finance. AI-Native.

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A recent cybersecurity report has highlighted the growing scale of threats targeting cloud environments worldwide, recording 2.3 billion brute-force attempts, which rely on automated password guessing, alongside 1.7 billion exploitation attempts and 150 million reconnaissance events targeting cloud environments.

The report found that attackers' use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to identify and exploit vulnerabilities has accelerated attacks and expanded their reach, leaving security teams with less time to detect and address threats before they cause significant operational and financial damage.

Accelerating Attacks:

According to Fortinet's 2026 Cloud-Native Threat Landscape Report released by Fortinet, the global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, AI and automation have helped reduce the time needed to exploit vulnerabilities from weeks to hours. Fortinet observed exploit activity within 24 to 48 hours of exploit code becoming available, highlighting how quickly attackers can exploit newly disclosed vulnerabilities.

This acceleration underscores the need to leverage AI and automation to strengthen threat response, enabling security teams to keep pace with attacks throughout application development, deployment, and runtime, while maintaining continuous security monitoring.

Identity Compromise:

Stolen or exposed credentials are among the main methods attackers use to access cloud environments while impersonating legitimate users. This makes it harder for organizations to distinguish malicious activity from normal user behavior.

These attacks rely on automated credential guessing, security misconfigurations, and weaknesses in cloud environments. Failure to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA), combined with excessive access privileges, further increases the risk of compromise. Organizations should therefore monitor account activity regularly and eliminate unnecessary privileges to protect sensitive data.

Security Vulnerabilities:

The report found that misconfigurations, excessive access privileges, and gaps in system monitoring can allow attackers to gain unauthorized access and cause damage with minimal effort. These risks are heightened by ongoing pressure to accelerate the release of applications and AI services.

The report emphasized the importance of implementing comprehensive cybersecurity controls throughout the application lifecycle, from development and deployment through to runtime. This includes continuously assessing weaknesses and identifying vulnerabilities that attackers can readily exploit.

Digital Transformation:

These measures are particularly important for Saudi Arabia's digitally intensive sectors, including financial services, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure, telecommunications, and government entities. As organizations expand their use of cloud computing and AI, robust security measures are essential to supporting the Kingdom's digital transformation and the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030.

Financial Losses:

Attackers' objectives extend beyond data theft to hijacking cloud computing resources for financial gain. This includes abusing cloud email services, conducting cryptocurrency mining, and exploiting AI services without authorization.

The report warned that sudden, unexplained increases in cloud service consumption, computing resource usage, email activity, or AI service usage may indicate that systems have been compromised and their resources are being used without authorization. Such activity can drive up operational costs and increase security risks.

Key Defense Priorities:

The report identified three key priorities for strengthening cloud security: identifying and prioritizing security risks for remediation; applying AI-native security throughout application development, deployment, and runtime, including threat response; and proactively testing the effectiveness of security measures.

Fortinet's FortiCNAPP platform, designed to protect cloud-native applications, helps security teams identify active threats and high-risk vulnerabilities, allowing them to focus their efforts and resources on the most critical issues rather than becoming overwhelmed by unprioritized findings from traditional security scans.

Proactive Security Testing:

The report recommended expanding security testing to include simulations of attacker techniques, testing applications at runtime, and identifying potential attack paths before adversaries can exploit them.

When integrated with FortiCNAPP and FortiAppSec Cloud, Fortinet's FortiDAST solution for dynamic application security testing extends security testing to generative AI applications, focusing on the risks outlined in the OWASP Top 10 for Large Language Model Applications (OWASP LLM Top 10).

Fortinet's FortiAIGate solution also provides dedicated capabilities for conducting penetration and stress testing of AI systems to assess their resilience against attacks.

Continuous Protection:

Drawing on threat intelligence data provided by the FortiCNAPP platform, the report concluded that attacks targeting cloud environments are increasingly continuous and automated.

This evolving threat landscape calls for stronger defenses that can keep pace with the speed of attacks. Organizations must continuously reduce risk, remediate vulnerabilities, monitor for resource abuse, and accelerate threat detection and response to strengthen the security of digital environments.

About Fortinet:

Fortinet is a driving force in the evolution of cybersecurity and the convergence of networking and security. Our mission is to secure people, devices, and data everywhere, and today we deliver cybersecurity everywhere our customers need it with the largest integrated portfolio of over 50 enterprise-grade products. Well over half a million customers trust Fortinet's solutions, which are among the most deployed, most patented, and most validated in the industry. The Fortinet Training Institute, one of the largest and broadest training programs in the industry, is dedicated to making cybersecurity training and new career opportunities available to everyone. Collaboration with esteemed organizations from both the public and private sectors, including Computer Emergency Response Teams (“CERTS”), government entities, and academia, is a fundamental aspect of Fortinet's commitment to enhance cyber resilience globally. FortiGuard Labs, Fortinet's elite threat intelligence and research organization, develops and utilizes leading-edge machine learning and AI technologies to provide customers with timely and consistently top-rated protection and actionable threat intelligence.

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