The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office received 1,371 cyber incident reports between July and September 2026, according to The Record’s November 13 analysis. The outlet describes the provisional total as a quarterly record.
Including non-cyber cases, such as information sent to the wrong person, total data-security reports reached 4,604. The cyber figure should therefore be read as one part of the regulator’s breach-reporting workload.
The ICO’s own methodology sets boundaries around that interpretation. Its dataset covers personal-data breaches that organizations discovered and reported, rather than every attack in the country. Some cases handled in a separate system are excluded.
The regulator also cautions that classification and data-entry practices change, and says its cyber/non-cyber categorization is under review. Comparing categories across time therefore requires care, particularly when drawing conclusions about ransomware.
The reported rise is a useful signal of pressure on organizations. These counts alone cannot identify the cause of that increase or establish how much artificial intelligence contributed.
Chart: Alexander Martin, Recorded Future News; source: Information Commissioner’s Office. Q3 2026 figures are provisional.
