CrowdStrike: Average Cyberattack Breakout Time Now Under 30 Minutes
CrowdStrike, Wednesday, February 25th, 2026
The average cyberattack breakout time from initial access to lateral movement is now just 29 minutes, according to CrowdStrike's 2026 Global Threat Report published Tuesday.
The report also noted significant increases in AI-enabled attacks, zero-day exploitation, ClickFix attacks and nation-state activity, with North Korea-sponsored attacks more than doubling and China-nexus intrusions increasing by 38%.
Attackers are also increasingly targeting the cloud and valid credentials, with a 37% increase in cloud-conscious attacks noted. Cloud-focused attacks among nation-state actors increased 266%, and 35% of cloud incidents involved valid account abuse, CrowdStrike said.