Air systems or supermarkets, but above all hospitals or energy networks. The targets that hackers hit during 2026 in Italy are disparate, particularly considering essential plants and services. This is confirmed by research from the Comtel Study Center which has put vulnerability and new protection technologies under the magnifying glass, reporting how, in the first nine months of 2026, the National Cybersecurity Agency detected 3,271 cyber events in our country, significantly more than the 2,729 recorded in the whole of 2025. The incidents with a confirmed impact were, in total and always up to September, 1,922.
The research
The research, entitled "Secure communications in critical infrastructures", was developed together with a scientific committee involving the Lumsa of Rome and the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna.
The cost of cyber breaches
Some data, even at a general level, give a good and close-up account of the extent of the phenomenon. The average global cost of a cyber breach reached $4.99 million this year, one of the highest values in decades. Healthcare, as mentioned, remains the most affected target, with 6.6 million dollars per incident, while one in four malicious breaches now has an artificial intelligence component in the attack phase, up 56% in the last year. However, only 21% of companies already have a mature governance to manage the AI agents that the majority will use by 2027.
Future strategies
Given the situation, new strategies are needed to deal with threats. In this context, solutions are born that until a few years ago seemed like science fiction, such as the "highways of the future", those dedicated to drones. With ad hoc rules for low-altitude airspace, between zero and 150 meters, where thousands of drones for monitoring highways, pipelines and construction sites will soon be able to share lanes, priorities and traffic rules just like cars do today. Among the latest frontiers there are also submarine cables and satellites. For the latter, however, there is not only the risk of interference on the positioning signal, but the encryption of the command connections between satellite and ground station, historically neglected due to bandwidth limitations. Encryption, in this sense, also means mutually authenticating those who communicate, a safeguard that is still not taken for granted in the sector.
Artificial intelligence
The role of artificial intelligence is not negligible at all, as it will be increasingly used to identify anomalies and attacks, but will also be used by those who want to attack networks. In this area, the risk of "quantum computing" should not be underestimated. In fact, most digital communications, including satellites, rely on encryption that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could crack. The problem, experts have reported, does not only concern the future: an adversary can intercept and archive encrypted traffic today with the intention of deciphering it tomorrow, when the computing capacity is available, using a technique known as "harvest now, decrypt later". For this reason, the EU will introduce the obligation for member states to adopt explicit migration policies towards post-quantum cryptography, with the first deadlines already set for the end of 2026.
In-depth analysis
Budget 2027, what we know about the funds allocated to cybersecurity
