Mandiant M-Trends 2026 vs CrowdStrike 2026 Global Threat Report: What They Reveal About the Modern Threat Landscape

Short answer

Mandiant and CrowdStrike both describe a 2025 threat landscape shaped by faster intrusions, weaker visibility across non-traditional infrastructure, and growing adversary abuse of identity, cloud, SaaS, AI, edge devices, and virtualization platforms.

The strongest common message is that modern attackers are no longer relying only on malware or traditional endpoint compromise. They are exploiting trusted systems: user identities, help desks, SaaS integrations, cloud platforms, software supply chains, edge appliances, and recovery infrastructure.

Where the reports differ is in emphasis. Mandiant M-Trends 2026 is grounded in frontline incident response investigations and focuses heavily on dwell time, initial infection vectors, ransomware resilience, edge devices, virtualization infrastructure, and the operational lessons defenders should take from real breaches. CrowdStrike 2026 Global Threat Report is more adversary-led, emphasizing evasive tradecraft, AI-enabled activity, interactive intrusions, China-nexus edge exploitation, supply chain attacks, cloud-conscious adversaries, and the speed of eCrime operations.

Together, the two reports suggest that cybersecurity strategy in 2026 needs to move beyond endpoint-centric defence and toward cross-domain visibility, identity resilience, SaaS governance, infrastructure telemetry, rapid patching, and proactive threat hunting.

Reports compared

This article compares:

• Mandiant — M-Trends 2026 Executive Edition — 2026
• CrowdStrike — Global Threat Report — 2026

Both reports analyse threat activity observed during 2025, but they approach the landscape from different vantage points. Mandiant draws from more than 500,000 hours of frontline incident investigations conducted in 2025, while CrowdStrike summarizes intelligence and telemetry on adversary behaviour, tradecraft, and activity across 2025.

What both reports agree on

1. Attackers are exploiting trust, not just vulnerabilities

Both reports show that attackers are increasingly successful when they abuse trusted pathways rather than forcing their way through traditional technical controls.

Mandiant highlights voice phishing, stolen access, third-party SaaS compromises, identity services, backup infrastructure, virtualization layers, and edge devices as critical areas of compromise. CrowdStrike similarly frames 2025 as the “year of the evasive adversary,” where attackers operated through valid credentials, trusted identity flows, approved SaaS integrations, inherited software supply chains, and cloud services.

This is an important shift. The problem is not only that attackers are becoming more technically advanced. It is that the systems organizations already trust — identity providers, SaaS integrations, remote support tools, software updates, hypervisors, and cloud platforms — are becoming the attack paths.

2. Speed is compressing the defender’s response window

CrowdStrike reports that the average eCrime breakout time fell to 29 minutes in 2025, with the fastest breakout taking only 27 seconds and one intrusion reaching attempted data exfiltration within four minutes. Mandiant makes a related point through its “time to hand-off” finding: the median time between opportunistic initial access and access by a secondary threat group dropped to just 22 seconds in 2025.

The implication is clear: low-severity alerts can no longer be evaluated in isolation. A minor infection, fake browser update, malvertising event, or unauthorized remote access session may be the first stage of a much more serious intrusion.

For defenders, this changes the meaning of early containment. The goal is no longer just to identify “serious” activity. It is to disrupt the hand-off before a second actor turns initial access into ransomware, data theft, or infrastructure compromise.

3. Identity has become a primary attack surface

Both reports place identity at the centre of modern intrusions.

Mandiant notes that voice phishing became the second most commonly observed initial infection vector in 2025, rising to 11%, while email phishing declined to 6%. It also emphasizes continuous identity verification, least privilege, SaaS/cloud integration audits, and anomalous identity behaviour monitoring. CrowdStrike focuses on valid account abuse, hybrid identity abuse, OAuth token theft, AiTM phishing, Entra ID abuse, and adversaries using legitimate authentication flows to avoid suspicion.

The key difference from older phishing narratives is that attackers are not only stealing passwords. They are manipulating help desks, resetting MFA, enrolling new authentication methods, abusing OAuth tokens, compromising non-human identities, and using legitimate Microsoft or SaaS workflows to blend in.

For Cyntari readers, this makes the two reports especially relevant to the theme Identity, Phishing & Access Security.

4. Edge devices and unmanaged infrastructure are major visibility gaps

Both reports strongly warn that edge devices and infrastructure outside traditional endpoint coverage are becoming high-value attacker targets.

Mandiant says a subset of adversaries remained undetected for longer periods by establishing persistence in edge devices that typically lack standard telemetry. It also highlights systematic exploitation of edge and core network devices, warning that attackers can use native device features and poor logging to steal data and evade response. CrowdStrike similarly emphasizes China-nexus targeting of VPN appliances, firewalls, gateways, and other perimeter systems, noting that these devices often lack EDR coverage, have reduced logging, and are inconsistently patched.

This is one of the strongest points of overlap between the reports. Both argue that defenders cannot rely on endpoint visibility alone. Network devices, virtualization platforms, SaaS applications, identity infrastructure, and cloud control planes must be monitored as first-class attack surfaces.

5. Ransomware is now a resilience and recovery problem

Both reports treat ransomware as more than encryption.

Mandiant’s strongest ransomware message is that attackers are increasingly targeting identity services, backup infrastructure, and virtualization platforms to deny recovery. In this framing, ransomware becomes a resilience problem: if attackers can destroy the systems needed to restore operations, the victim faces pressure to pay or rebuild. CrowdStrike similarly describes big game hunting adversaries using cross-domain tradecraft, unmanaged systems, SaaS access, VMware ESXi targeting, and remote encryption to bypass traditional defences.

The shared lesson is that backups are not enough if backup catalogues, hypervisors, identity systems, and recovery workflows are reachable from the compromised production environment.

For Cyntari, this connects strongly to Ransomware & Extortion and Cyber Risk & Resilience.

Where the reports differ

Mandiant is more incident-response and resilience focused

Mandiant’s report is structured around what its teams saw in real investigations. It gives readers practical information about initial infection vectors, dwell time, detection sources, malware families, hand-off speed, ransomware recovery denial, multi-year intrusions, edge device compromise, virtualization infrastructure, and SaaS compromise.

Its strongest value is operational. It helps security leaders ask:

• Where are we blind?
• Which systems would attackers target to prevent recovery?
• Can we detect activity on hypervisors, edge devices, identity services, and SaaS platforms?
• Are low-severity alerts treated seriously enough?
• Do our incident response playbooks reflect modern ransomware tradecraft?

CrowdStrike is more adversary and tradecraft focused

CrowdStrike’s report is structured around adversary behaviour. It emphasizes the “evasive adversary,” AI-enabled operations, interactive intrusions, malware-free detections, eCrime breakout time, China-nexus edge exploitation, software supply chain attacks, zero-day exploitation, and cloud-conscious threat actors.

Its strongest value is threat intelligence. It helps readers ask:

• Which adversaries are changing their tactics?
• How are attackers using AI?
• Which sectors and regions are being targeted?
• How are China-nexus actors exploiting edge devices?
• How are eCrime groups moving across identity, cloud, SaaS, and unmanaged infrastructure?

Key comparison table

Topic	Mandiant M-Trends 2026	CrowdStrike 2026 Global Threat Report
Core framing	Frontline incident response lessons from 2025	2025 as the year of the evasive adversary
Primary lens	Breach investigations, dwell time, infection vectors, resilience	Adversary behaviour, speed, evasion, tradecraft
AI focus	AI as an emerging adversary tool and AI toolchains as a security concern	AI-enabled adversaries, LLM-enabled malware, AI system abuse, agentic risk
Ransomware focus	Recovery denial, backups, identity services, virtualization, resilience	Cross-domain ransomware tradecraft, unmanaged systems, ESXi, SaaS exfiltration
Identity focus	Voice phishing, MFA reset abuse, contractor and remote worker risk	Valid account abuse, Entra ID, OAuth tokens, AiTM phishing, hybrid identity
Cloud/SaaS focus	Third-party SaaS compromise, tokens, hidden integrations, SaaS governance	Cloud-conscious intrusions, SaaS data theft, non-human identities, trust abuse
Edge device focus	Edge and core network devices as blind spots with weak telemetry	China-nexus edge exploitation and rapid vulnerability weaponization
Detection message	Expand telemetry beyond endpoints and retain logs longer	Correlate cross-domain telemetry and hunt proactively
Best audience	CISOs, incident response teams, SOC leaders, infrastructure owners	Threat intelligence teams, SOC leaders, cloud defenders, executive security teams

Main Cyntari themes

AI Security & AI Governance

Both reports treat AI as a growing security issue, but CrowdStrike gives it more space. CrowdStrike describes AI-enabled adversaries using AI for social engineering, information operations, malware development, reconnaissance, and post-exploitation activity. It also discusses direct threats to AI systems, including prompt injection, malicious MCP servers, AI-themed malware lures, and AI agents as a future attack surface.

Mandiant also highlights adversary adoption of AI, including LLM-enabled social engineering, malware querying LLMs during execution, and attackers weaponizing local AI command-line tools inside compromised environments.

Identity, Phishing & Access Security

This is one of the strongest shared themes. Mandiant’s finding that voice phishing became the second most common initial infection vector reinforces CrowdStrike’s broader argument that attackers are exploiting human trust, help desk processes, valid accounts, SaaS sessions, and identity flows.

Cloud Security

Both reports show that cloud and SaaS environments are no longer secondary targets. They are central to data theft, persistence, lateral movement, and downstream compromise. CrowdStrike emphasizes cloud-conscious intrusions and SaaS targeting; Mandiant emphasizes SaaS compromise, third-party integrations, OAuth/session risk, and the need to govern the SaaS estate.

Ransomware & Extortion

Mandiant frames ransomware as a recovery-denial and resilience problem. CrowdStrike frames ransomware as cross-domain adversary tradecraft, where attackers move through identity, cloud, SaaS, unmanaged hosts, and virtualization infrastructure to evade endpoint controls.

Threat Actors, Geopolitics & Intelligence

CrowdStrike is stronger for named adversary tracking and geopolitical analysis, especially around China-nexus, Russia-nexus, DPRK-nexus, and Iran-nexus activity. Mandiant also discusses espionage and DPRK IT worker operations, especially in relation to longer dwell times and identity risk.

Vulnerability & Exposure Management

Both reports stress rapid exploitation of edge and internet-facing systems. CrowdStrike highlights zero-day exploitation and China-nexus rapid weaponization of newly disclosed vulnerabilities. Mandiant emphasizes exploits as the most common initial infection vector for the sixth consecutive year.

Cyber Risk & Resilience

Mandiant is especially strong here. Its ransomware section makes clear that resilience depends on protecting recovery infrastructure, backup systems, identity services, and virtualization management planes. CrowdStrike supports this theme through its coverage of ransomware actors exploiting unmanaged systems and cross-domain visibility gaps.

SOC, Detection & Response

Both reports argue for expanded visibility and faster response. Mandiant focuses on centralized logging, long-term retention, network device telemetry, and infrastructure-specific incident playbooks. CrowdStrike focuses on cross-domain correlation, proactive hunting, and operating at the speed of AI-accelerated adversaries.

What changed in the threat landscape?

Email phishing is less central than interactive social engineering

Mandiant’s data shows email phishing declining as an observed initial infection vector, while voice phishing rose sharply. CrowdStrike reinforces this through examples of adversaries using vishing, social engineering, help desk manipulation, and legitimate remote support tools.

The important point is not that email phishing is disappearing. It is that attackers are moving to interactive methods that are harder for automated controls to block.

Endpoint visibility is no longer enough

Both reports repeatedly point to infrastructure that traditional EDR may not cover: edge appliances, firewalls, VPNs, hypervisors, SaaS integrations, cloud identity systems, and unmanaged devices.

This is one of the most important practical takeaways. Organizations may have strong endpoint security and still miss the infrastructure layer where attackers are increasingly operating.

Ransomware actors are targeting recovery capacity

Ransomware is no longer just about encrypting laptops and servers. The reports show attackers targeting identity, backups, virtualization infrastructure, cloud resources, and SaaS data. This makes incident response and business continuity much harder.

AI is accelerating existing tactics more than replacing them

Both reports show that AI matters, but neither suggests that AI has completely replaced existing attacker tradecraft. The more realistic interpretation is that AI helps attackers scale, translate, automate, generate, test, and accelerate familiar tactics.

CrowdStrike is particularly clear that AI is currently enhancing established techniques rather than creating entirely new categories of attack.

Who should read these reports?

Read Mandiant M-Trends 2026 if you are focused on:

• Incident response planning
• Ransomware resilience
• Dwell time and detection gaps
• Edge device and network infrastructure visibility
• Virtualization security
• Recovery denial
• SaaS and third-party compromise
• Practical defensive priorities from real investigations

Read CrowdStrike 2026 Global Threat Report if you are focused on:

• Threat actor behaviour
• AI-enabled adversaries
• China-nexus and state-nexus activity
• eCrime breakout speed
• Interactive intrusions
• Supply chain attacks
• Cloud-conscious adversaries
• Zero-day exploitation trends
• Cross-domain detection strategy

Questions these reports help answer

These reports are useful for answering questions such as:

• How did adversary behaviour change in 2025?
• Why are attackers increasingly targeting identity and SaaS platforms?
• How quickly can eCrime actors move after initial access?
• Why are edge devices and hypervisors becoming major attack surfaces?
• How are ransomware groups targeting recovery infrastructure?
• How are attackers using AI in real operations?
• What should security teams monitor beyond endpoints?
• How are China-nexus actors exploiting perimeter infrastructure?
• What should organizations change in their incident response playbooks?
• Which cybersecurity themes are most important for 2026 planning?

Practical takeaways for security teams

1. Treat identity as Tier-0 infrastructure

Identity systems now control access to cloud, SaaS, endpoints, infrastructure, and recovery systems. They should be monitored, segmented, and governed accordingly.

2. Expand visibility beyond EDR

Security teams need telemetry from VPNs, firewalls, edge appliances, hypervisors, SaaS applications, cloud control planes, identity providers, and backup systems.

3. Respond faster to low-severity alerts

The Mandiant hand-off data and CrowdStrike breakout-time data both show that early-stage activity can escalate extremely quickly. Routine malware and access alerts should be evaluated in context, not dismissed as isolated events.

4. Protect recovery systems before ransomware hits

Backup infrastructure, recovery environments, identity services, and virtualization management planes need isolation, immutable backups, separate credentials, and tested recovery processes.

5. Update security awareness for voice and help desk attacks

Awareness training should move beyond email phishing. Help desk personnel, IT administrators, finance teams, developers, and remote workers need training for vishing, MFA reset abuse, fake job tasks, OAuth consent abuse, and remote support manipulation.

6. Secure AI use and AI toolchains

AI security should include employee AI use, developer tools, AI command-line utilities, model access, prompt handling, AI agents, and data exposure risks.

Final assessment

The two reports are highly complementary.

Mandiant M-Trends 2026 is strongest as a breach-grounded operational guide. It shows where organizations failed to detect, contain, or recover from real incidents. Its most important contribution is the argument that resilience now depends on protecting the infrastructure attackers use to deny recovery: identity, backup, virtualization, and edge systems.

CrowdStrike 2026 Global Threat Report is strongest as an adversary intelligence guide. It shows how threat actors are becoming faster, more evasive, more identity-aware, more cloud-conscious, and more willing to abuse AI, software supply chains, and trusted platforms.

Together, they point to the same strategic conclusion: defenders need to stop thinking of cybersecurity as a set of separate controls around endpoints, email, cloud, identity, SaaS, and infrastructure. Modern intrusions move across all of them. Security teams that cannot connect those domains will struggle to detect attackers operating through trusted systems.