UAE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Muthmainur Rahman and Kajen Subramoney, Ankura Consulting Group LLC
SonicWall’s 2025 Cyber Threat Report adds a con - cerning dimension: 61% of hackers now exploit new vulnerabilities within 48 hours of public disclosure. If these vulnerabilities are not patched rapidly, an organ - isation is at significant risk within only two days. This global speed stands in stark contrast to the local reality. With the UAE CSC reporting that 50% of UAE vulnerabilities are more than five years old, local organisations could be losing the race before it begins. Attackers do not need expensive zero-days when unpatched legacy systems remain exposed for years. The trust deficit Forrester predicts 2026 as the “year of reckoning” for trust, where deepfakes render standard biometric verification unreliable. In the UAE, where business is often conducted via voice and video calls, the ability to distinguish “human” from “synthetic” is becom - ing a legal and operational risk. These techniques have been used in past years to elicit bank transfers through pressure from a senior executive whose voice has been meticulously recreated using deepfake tech - nology. That technology now extends to live video, where seeing is no longer believing. The UAE Threat Landscape 2025: Anomalies and Escalations While global trends set the tempo, the UAE’s threat landscape in 2025 displayed distinct, localised char - acteristics, driven by the region’s high concentration of wealth and rapid digitisation. The DDoS explosion Contrary to the global trend of gradual increases, the UAE experienced a hyperlocalised surge in attacks in 2024, followed by a reduction in 2025. Help AG’s 2025 Report confirms that DDoS attacks in the UAE have surged to over 373,429 incidents at the end of 2024, a staggering 862% increase since 2019. More recently, in October, NetScout reported that the UAE experienced 3,477 attacks in the first half of 2025, with the average attack duration among the longest at just over 27 minutes.
The trends point to the evolution of DDoS attacks as a weaponised feature of the geopolitical landscape. Hacktivist groups and state-sponsored actors are increasingly using DDoS attacks to disrupt critical infrastructure, particularly the government, telecom - munications, and financial sectors. For legal teams, this redefines “operational resilience”. A DDoS attack is no longer a force majeure event; it is a foreseeable risk that requires extensive plan - ning and a mitigation strategy. Many companies are now insisting that contracts with service providers include specific SLAs (service level agreements) for DDoS mitigation and recovery; general availability is no longer adequate. Ransomware: the rise of the micro-affiliate The global ransomware ecosystem is consolidating, but in the UAE, it is fragmenting. Group-IB’s High-Tech Crime Trends 2025 report notes a significant escala - tion in the region, with a 44% increase in underground recruitment efforts by ransomware affiliates targeting GCC countries. This shift can be seen as dominance of “big game hunters” like LockBit3 has diluted (dropping from 31% to 16% market share). In their place, a swarm of smaller, agile, and aggressive groups like Ransom - Hub, DarkVault and Everest has emerged. Everest, in particular, was the most active group in 2025, special - ising in “double extortion” (encrypting data + threaten - ing leaks). This fragmentation complicates the legal response to extortion. Smaller groups are less predictable, often lack the “customer service” infrastructure of estab - lished cartels to facilitate decryption, and they may be less aware of US OFAC sanctions lists. This increases the legal risk for UAE companies considering ransom payments. Identity and the deepfake phishing wave The UAE has one of the highest smartphone penetra - tion rates in the world, making it a testing ground for next-generation social engineering. Kaspersky reported a 21.2% surge in phishing attacks in the UAE in Q2 2025 alone. It has been observed that
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