Cyber attacks on Swiss companies down seven percent in February
Swiss companies are exposed to an average of 1166 cyber attacks every week - seven percent fewer than in the previous month. The energy sector, retail and public administration remain particularly at risk. Check Point Research also reports an increase in ransomware activity.
In February, companies worldwide were exposed to an average of 2086 cyber attacks per week. These are the latest figures from Check Point Research, the security research division of Check Point Software Technologies. In Switzerland, the number of attacks fell by seven percent compared to the previous month to 1166 attacks. Nevertheless, this means that companies and security managers are still under pressure and the risk remains high.
«The analysis of the threat data for Switzerland shows that although there has been a recent decline in the number of monthly attacks, the total number of 1166 is not so low compared to Germany,» explains Marco Pierro, Country Manager Switzerland at Check Point Software. Germany recorded 1345 attacks, an increase of eleven percent. «The energy sector, retail and public administration were again at risk in this country. The increase in ransomware activities in the last month and the number of groups now active is striking.»
Different regional developments
With an average of 1764 attacks per organization, Europe recorded an increase of eleven percent, while North America grew by nine percent with 1456 attacks. Latin America leads the way with 3123 weekly access attempts and an increase of 20 percent compared to the previous year. The Asia-Pacific region recorded 3040 attacks (up three percent), while Africa was the only region to record a decrease of seven percent with 2993 attacks.
In Switzerland, the energy sector and utilities were the hardest hit in February, followed by retail and public authorities. Globally, the education sector remained the most frequently attacked industry with an average of 4749 cyber attacks per week - an increase of seven percent compared to the previous year. A large number of users, freely accessible network environments and limited security resources make educational institutions particularly attractive to attackers.
GenAI as a risk factor for data leaks
The use of generative artificial intelligence in companies remains a significant risk: every 31st GenAI request carries a high risk of disclosing sensitive data. 88% of organizations that regularly use GenAI tools are affected by this risk. A further 16 percent of requests contain potentially sensitive information. Organizations use an average of eleven different GenAI tools, indicating fragmented adoption. The average corporate user generated 62 GenAI requests per month.
Without centralized controls and uniform guidelines, companies are exposed to numerous risks: password leaks, disclosure of proprietary data, unintentional disclosure of internal documents and threats to the supply chain.
Ransomware remains a structural threat
In February 2026, 629 ransomware attacks were reported worldwide, a decrease of 32 percent compared to the previous year. However, this decrease is primarily due to an unusually large ransomware campaign carried out by the Clop group during the same period in 2025. Excluding this campaign, ransomware activity remains largely unchanged year-on-year.
North America suffered 57 percent of reported ransomware incidents, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific with 17 percent each. The USA was the most affected country with 51 percent of all reported ransomware attacks, followed by Canada with six percent and the UK with 2.7 percent.
Qilin led the global ransomware activity and was responsible for 15 percent of the published attacks. Clop accounted for 13 percent, ending a month-long campaign that exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in Oracle E-Business Suite. The Gentlemen, responsible for 11% of the attacks, doubled the number of its victims compared to the previous month. Remarkably, 49 different ransomware groups publicly attacked organizations worldwide in February.
The insights come from Check Point's ThreatCloud AI platform, which analyzes millions of indicators of compromise every day. ThreatCloud is powered by over 50 AI-driven engines and fed with information from more than 150,000 networks and millions of endpoints. Further information can be found in the Check Point Research Blog.
Source: www.checkpoint.com
This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/cyber-angriffe-auf-schweizer-unternehmen-im-februar-um-sieben-prozent-gesunken/
