Record 1,371 cyber incidents reported to the UK privacy regulator
5 min read · By Aston Kennedy
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British organisations reported 1,371 cyber incidents to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) between July and September 2026. That beats the previous three-month record, set in 2023, and puts the year on course to break the annual record too. The figures were analysed by Recorded Future News.
Reports of all data security incidents, including non-cyber breaches such as emails sent to the wrong person, also hit a quarterly high of 4,604.
Which sectors
- Retail and manufacturing: up from 205 to 296.
- Charities and voluntary groups: nearly doubled, from 79 to 145.
- Online technology and telecoms: up from 76 to 120.
- Education and childcare: the only one of the six most affected to fall, from 135 to 115.
Ransomware is down. Extortion is not
The ICO's ransomware count keeps falling: 1,253 in 2023, 752 in 2024, 620 in 2025 and 321 in the first nine months of 2026. Most of the new reports sit in a catch-all "other cyber incident" category. Leak sites tell a different story. Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at Sophos, said about 350 British organisations have been named on them so far this year, roughly 50% more than last year, against a global rise of about 25%. Worldwide, more than 1,200 new victims were named in October alone, a Sophos record.
Some UK incident response firms told Recorded Future News they were turning clients away. Only 18 of the 1,371 incidents led to formal ICO investigations.
AI is speeding things up
Pilling pointed to criminal groups adding AI to their operations and to more attacks using AI agent frameworks. Jonathon Ellison of the NCSC said AI "is increasing the speed and scale at which these vulnerabilities can be found, and potentially exploited." Both said the basics still work: fix internet-facing flaws and use phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication and passkeys.
For a team with no security department, the AI Security checklist at ArtificialIntelligence.com.ai is a sensible first read, and Ask AI or AI chat can help draft an incident plan. More on Artificial Intelligence can be found across AI at a-i.llc, Artificial Intelligence (AI) at aiai.llc, askaillm.com, aifirstllm.com, ArtificialIntelligence.llc, ArtificialIntelligence.ai.in and ArtificialIntelligence.kred.
Source: Alexander Martin, Recorded Future News, 13 November 2026, using ICO security incident data.
