Welcome to SOCRadar’s Europe Threat Landscape Report’s CISO Brief!

Europe’s cyber threat landscape is shaped by large-scale data trade, access brokerage, fragmented ransomware activity, and increasingly convincing phishing campaigns. Threat actors continue to monetize stolen data and credentials while using unauthorized access as a pathway to deeper compromise. SOCRadar’s Europe Threat Landscape Report’s CISO Brief provides security leaders with actionable visibility into these risks, helping CISOs strengthen detection, improve resilience, and reduce exposure across complex regional environments.

Download the full report today to gain a clear understanding of cyber risks impacting organizations across Europe.

Key Cybersecurity Insights for Security Leaders

• Dark Web Activity Is Data-Driven: Selling (66%) and sharing (29.24%) make up over 95% of dark web activity.
• Data Leaks Dominate Threat Types: Data and database leaks account for 69.92% of dark web threats targeting Europe.
• Access Sales Create Serious Intrusion Risk: Access listings represent 26.22% of threats, often enabling ransomware or deeper compromise.
• Ransomware Activity Is Highly Fragmented: Qilin leads at 16.8%, while 71.2% of activity comes from smaller or emerging groups.
• Phishing Uses Trusted Media and Generic Templates: Le Monde impersonation accounts for nearly 24% of phishing page titles, alongside template-based pages such as “My Framer Site.”
• HTTPS Weakens Traditional Trust Indicators: 89.1% of phishing pages use HTTPS, making protocol-based detection unreliable.
• Government and Financial Targets Face Layered Risk: Public administration, finance, banking, and national security-related sectors face both cybercriminal and politically motivated pressure.

Why This Report Matters for CISOs

Europe’s threat landscape requires security teams to manage different risks across dark web activity, ransomware, and phishing. Stolen data and access sales create early warning signals for future compromise, while fragmented ransomware activity makes actor-specific defense insufficient.

CISOs should prioritize dark web monitoring, access control, phishing detection, ransomware readiness, and intelligence sharing. By combining these controls with threat-specific visibility, organizations can reduce exposure and respond faster to attacks across Europe’s complex cyber environment.