As we enter 2026, the Centre for Police Technology (CPT) has issued a stark warning about a significant transformation in the global cybercrime landscape. Crime operations are increasingly becoming industrialized, AI-driven threats targeting individuals, businesses, and critical infrastructure worldwide. The CPT Predictive Cybercrime Outlook 2026 synthesizes historical trends and emerging patterns to forecast the challenges that law enforcement and cyber defenders will face in the near future.
Recent years have witnessed a dramatic escalation in cybercrime, both in scope and financial impact. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), losses attributed to reported cybercrime reached approximately $16.6 billion in 2024, marking a 33% increase over the previous year, despite a slight decline in total complaints. Phishing, data extortion, and personal data breaches have emerged as the most commonly reported incidents, with seniors disproportionately affected. In contrast, losses were reported at $12.5 billion in 2023 and over $10 billion in 2022, indicating an explosive rise in just a few years. Analysts suggest that global cybercrime losses could soar into the trillions annually by the mid-2020s, driven by ransomware, fraud, and breaches involving cloud and AI-enabled vectors.
The CPT report identifies artificial intelligence (AI) as the primary catalyst expected to shape cybercrime in 2026. AI-driven tools are democratizing techniques once accessible only to elite attackers. The report predicts a sharp rise in AI-powered phishing kits and scam campaigns, automating convincingly tailored social-engineering attacks. Furthermore, deepfake and synthetic identity attacks are projected to grow by over 50% year-over-year, enhancing criminals’ ability to impersonate trusted contacts with alarming realism. The use of malicious AI code-generation and automated vulnerability scanning is anticipated to significantly boost attackers’ efficiency, lowering the barriers for complex exploits.
Despite the diversification of cyber threats, ransomware remains a core component of the cybercriminal arsenal. Reports indicate that complaints regarding ransomware attacks continued to rise into 2024 and 2025, with a notable increase in publicly disclosed incidents. The automation of ransom demands and negotiation processes has made these attacks more responsive to defensive measures. Business Email Compromise (BEC) and extortion attacks are also among the leading sources of financial loss, underscoring the effectiveness of social-engineering techniques in undermining organizational defenses.
Looking ahead to 2026, the evolving attack surfaces will increasingly focus on identity systems, automated workflows, and third-party ecosystems. Attackers are expected to exploit trust relationships and overlooked permissions rather than relying solely on traditional software vulnerabilities. Analysts predict a sharp rise in deepfake-enabled identity fraud and OAuth token exploitation, while supply chain breaches are expected to continue proliferating. Interestingly, smaller organizations, once considered lower-value targets, now account for nearly half of all attacks as adversaries harness scalable tools to widen their attack nets.
The digital finance ecosystem, particularly cryptocurrency, is playing an increasingly prominent role in cybercrime. In 2024 alone, crypto scams accounted for billions in losses, with Americans losing more than $9 billion to crypto-related fraud. This trend reflects larger global patterns where illicit cryptocurrency movements and decentralized finance (DeFi) opportunism facilitate money laundering and ransom withdrawals.
The CPT emphasizes the need for law enforcement agencies to adopt new strategies in response to the evolving landscape of cybercrime. Traditional reactive policing models are deemed inadequate for the rapid pace and scale of the threats anticipated in 2026. Agencies are encouraged to leverage AI-augmented forensic and detection capabilities, establish real-time intelligence sharing networks with international partners, and implement predictive analytics frameworks to identify emerging threat vectors before they become widespread. Recent international operations, such as Interpol’s dismantling of major ransomware and BEC networks, highlight the measurable impact of cooperative efforts in combating cybercrime.
In conclusion, the CPT report outlines a future characterized by an ongoing co-evolution of cyber threats and defenses, propelled by AI technology. Cybercriminals are expected to integrate automation, synthetic media, and scalable fraud platforms into cohesive operations, while defenders must embrace adaptive, AI-driven cybersecurity strategies to safeguard digital infrastructure. In this rapidly escalating environment, proactive intelligence, cross-sector partnerships, and regulatory modernization will be essential to mitigate the systemic economic and societal harms posed by cybercrime.
The challenge for law enforcement and cybersecurity communities has shifted from merely responding to breaches to outpacing intelligent threats that evolve at unprecedented speeds.
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center
Interpol
Centre for Police Technology
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