51% of respondents at middle market organisations said they are developing and maintaining a business continuity plan.

91% of respondents said they expect their middle market's organisation's cybersecurity budget to increase in the year ahead.

50% of respondents at middle market organisations are implementing disaster recovery plans for critical systems.

The deployment of malware was the most observed action on objectives, making up 42% of cases.

The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region experienced the largest share of security incidents in 2024 at 34%.

X-Force observed a decline in ransomware incidents overall for the third year.

4 out of top 10 vulnerabilities most mentioned on the dark web are linked to sophisticated threat actors.

Analysis of dark web data reveals listings of infostealer advertisements increased 12% in 2024 over the previous year.

Of all PDFs used in malicious spam, 42% used obfuscated URLs, 28% hid their URLs in PDF streams, and 7% were delivered in an encrypted form along with a password.

Malicious ZIP and RAR attachments in phishing emails dropped by 70% and 45% respectively

35% of respondents in larger middle market companies reported at least one ransomware attack or request.

Ransomware comprises nearly one-third (28%) of malware incident response cases and 11% of security cases.

Only 24% of generative AI projects are secured.

Nearly a quarter of all vulnerabilities in the IBM X-Force Vulnerability Database have an associated weaponized exploit.

Data theft was observed in 18% of incidents.

There was a 12% year-over-year increase of infostealer credentials for sale on the dark web.

47% of larger middle market firms reported that their top continuity strategy is leveraging technology to hunt for threats and respond to cyber events.

While most respondents from smaller middle market companies cited having 0-5 internal personnel focused on data security and privacy, 36% of larger middle market organisations reported having 6-10 employees and another 36% said they have 11-15 employees in this area.

28% of respondents at middle market organisations said their existing security measures were partially successful against ransomware attacks.

The percentage of companies integrating AI into at least one business function has dramatically increased to 72% in 2024, up 55% from the previous year.