Mastercard’s Cyber Pulse Report reveals the region’s threat landscape ahead of an exclusive interview with Selin Bahadirli
Cyberattacks across Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa climbed 13% over the past year, according to Mastercard’s inaugural Cyber Pulse Report, with a 198% surge recorded on the first day of the recent Middle East conflict alone. Government, technology and financial services organisations bore the brunt of this activity, together accounting for 44% of all targeted sectors, while the Middle East emerged as the most targeted geography, absorbing 49% of regional attacks. The financial toll is steep too: the average cost of a data breach in the Middle East now stands at $7.29 million, 64% above the global average, even as organisations increase security spending at a 10% compound annual rate.
MENA faces a shortfall of more than 300,000 cybersecurity professionals, with 43% of organisations reporting they are understaffed, a gap that Mastercard’s report identifies as a bigger driver of exposure than technology itself. Weaknesses in software patching, web application security, encryption and network filtering remain the most common entry points for attackers, and the report’s “first 10 days” finding, that threat activity can spike by an order of magnitude within 48 to 72 hours of a geopolitical trigger, underscores why speed and governance matter as much as tooling.
Selin Bahadirli, Executive Vice President, Services, EEMEA at Mastercard, unpacks these findings and explains why cyber resilience has moved from a delegated technical function to a standing item at CEO and board level.
Interview Excerpts
How has cyber resilience evolved from an IT issue to a boardroom priority, and what does this mean for organisations across EEMEA?
As the digital transformation accelerates, the cyber-attack surface is growing faster than organisations are preparing to protect it. What we’re seeing across the region is not just more cyber activity but also more interconnected risk. The question is less about if disruption may occur, and more about how prepared organisations are to withstand and recover. And the stakes are higher than ever, with cyber incidents having far-reaching consequences for business continuity, customer trust and economic stability. That’s why today, business resilience is tied to good cyber health practices. For organisations, it is crucial to treat cyber resilience as an integral part of core enterprise risk management. They should strengthen the fundamentals to address recurring vulnerabilities, test their readiness through regular crisis simulation exercises and balance investment across technology, talent and governance.
What key trends is Mastercard seeing across the region, and how has the threat environment changed over the past year?
The inaugural edition of our Cyber Pulse Report reveals that the region’s threat landscape is shaped by the convergence of financial and geopolitical motivations. The public sector, technology and finance account for 44% of all targeted industries due to their high concentration of monetisable data and their critical role in national infrastructure. Malware, ransomware and email-based social engineering dominate the attack patterns, while application security and web encryption represent the most persistent vulnerabilities. Over the past year, the threat environment across EEMEA continued to evolve toward more targeted, persistent and multi-stage attacks, driven by rapid cloud adoption and increased integration of AI-enabled technologies. Our report has observed a 13% increase in cyber-attacks in the region compared to the previous year. There were months when the attack activity was dropping steadily but then rebounded, suggesting that the long-term pattern is not rise or fall – it’s a ‘surge-cooldown-resurgence’ cycle. This indicates that threat actors tend to regroup and come back with more targeted, higher-impact operations.
Why do business systems, customer data and critical infrastructure remain prime targets, and what should organisations be doing to protect them?
These three areas together account for two-thirds of all targets. In business systems and physical infrastructure, malicious actors aim to cause operational disruption, and in customer information, they seek to commit fraud. When examining primary attack vectors, we have found that attackers favour scale and repeatability over sophistication, which is exactly what attracts them to these domains. Boosting application security and enforcing modern encryption standards represent the most immediate opportunities to reduce cyber exposure and improve digital trust. Strengthening these areas not only lowers the likelihood of an initial compromise but also enhances operational resilience and reinforces customer confidence in the digital ecosystem.
In an evolving threat environment, organisations must also keep in mind that when it comes to getting ahead of cyber criminals, every second counts. In this context, proactive cyber intelligence plays a key role in providing real-time insights for a more agile line of defence.
How can businesses continue accelerating digital transformation while maintaining trust, security and operational resilience?
Cybersecurity is not here to put the brakes on innovation, it’s here to ensure innovation is trusted, because trust is what turns innovation into adoption. The most important thing is building a resilient foundational architecture with the right safeguards in place. This involves implementing a proactive and holistic approach to cybersecurity alongside consistent vigilance. By integrating multi-layered protections, verifiable authorisation and clear data governance as non-negotiable standards, businesses can drive digital growth with confidence.
What role can partnerships and collective intelligence sharing play in building stronger cyber resilience across EEMEA?
Keeping cyberspace secure is a momentous task that no single entity can achieve alone. At Mastercard, we are committed to harnessing the power of collaboration to safeguard trust in the digital ecosystem. We use global intelligence gained from protecting the billions of transactions we process on our network every year – 174 billion in 2025 alone – to equip our customers and partners with advanced cybersecurity and fraud prevention tools. Our long-term security solutions strategy involves continuous investment in new technology to stay ahead of evolving cyber threats. Since 2019, we have invested approximately $12.6 billion in cybersecurity innovation. At the core of this is Recorded Future, which delivers real time insight into cyber threats enabling businesses and governments to identify emerging risks earlier, prioritise response, and make more informed decisions in an increasingly complex digital environment. Combined with products such as RiskRecon, CyberQuant, and Cyber Insights, Mastercard enables organisations to assess their cyber exposure, understand how threats may evolve, and translate intelligence into practical actions that strengthen trust, continuity, and resilience. Together, these capabilities provide a more connected, intelligence-driven view of risk across the organisation. We also recognise the importance of providing ecosystem stakeholders with actionable insights that empower them to fortify their cybersecurity posture. That’s why we have launched the Cyber Pulse Report that draws on real-world intelligence to offer a data-driven view of the region’s cyber threat landscape, helping organisations move from awareness to readiness.
Source: Tahawul Tech