Report analyzes 4,970 penetration tests and 531,770 findings, revealing AI, cloud, mobile, and application logic as the dominant enterprise attack surfaces

NEW YORK: #AISecurity--BreachLock, the only offensive security platform combining agentic AI-powered autonomous penetration testing, expert-led, agentic AI-accelerated penetration testing services, and continuous Attack Surface Management (ASM), today announced the release of its 2026 Penetration Testing Intelligence Report, the company's fifth annual analysis of real-world security findings across global organizations. Based on data from 4,970 penetration tests and 531,770 individual security findings, the report provides a comprehensive analysis of the vulnerabilities, attack patterns, and emerging risks shaping the cybersecurity landscape in 2026 and beyond.

Among the report's most significant findings is the emergence of AI as a major enterprise attack surface. BreachLock's inaugural AI penetration testing dataset found that 100% of AI applications tested contained vulnerabilities aligned with the OWASP Top 10 for LLMs. Prompt injection (LLM01) was the most prevalent and impactful finding in the dataset, present in 28% of tested applications.

The report also identifies a sharp shift in how attackers are targeting web applications. Insecure Design and business logic flaws (OWASP A04) rose from 8% to 16% of findings year over year, a trend-defining increase in the 2026 web application dataset. Testers observed attackers exploiting race conditions in checkout flows, escalating privileges through parameter manipulation, and bypassing approval workflows outright. These issues do not appear on automated scanner reports. Finding them requires testers who understand how an application is supposed to behave and can reason through how that logic can be subverted.

Cloud environments produced the highest concentration of severe risk in the dataset. Cloud security audits carried a Critical finding rate of 1.34%, thirteen times higher than the rate found in web application testing, driven largely by exposed S3 buckets, leaking Lambda functions, and disabled GuardDuty monitoring.

Mobile applications showed a similarly narrow but severe risk profile. Hardcoded credentials in iOS applications accounted for 97% of all Critical mobile findings this year. These credentials can be extracted with free, publicly available tools in minutes, and credential-related vulnerabilities continue to be a top attack vector in headlines this year.

"Boards want to know which vulnerabilities can actually be used against them, and they want the answer as fast as an attacker can find it,” said Seemant Sehgal, Founder and CEO at BreachLock. “This industry has spent a decade producing lists of theoretical weakness. What matters now is proof of exploitability, tested at the same speed as the threat. For the third year running, we have contributed our dataset to the Verizon DBIR because the industry doesn't need more theory. It needs ground truth, and that's what this report delivers."

The report also highlights industry-specific risk trends across manufacturing, telecommunications, financial services, healthcare, retail, and technology organizations.

BreachLock's 2026 report is designed to help security leaders benchmark their programs against real-world offensive security data while providing actionable recommendations for reducing exposure through continuous testing, adversarial validation, cloud governance, mobile application security, and AI security assessments.

Download the BreachLock 2026 Penetration Testing Intelligence Report or read the blog for highlights.

About BreachLock

BreachLock is a global leader in offensive security, delivering scalable and continuous security testing. Trusted by global enterprises, BreachLock provides human-led and AI-powered Attack Surface Management, Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS), Red Teaming, and Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) solutions that help security teams stay ahead of adversaries.

With a mission to make proactive security the new standard, BreachLock is shaping the future of cybersecurity through automation, data-driven intelligence, and expert-driven execution.

Fonte: Business Wire