UAE Foils AI Cyberattacks on Finance Sector as High Alert Remains

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UAE foils AI cyberattacks on finance sector; high alert issued for persistent risks.

The UAE successfully blocked a coordinated wave of AI-powered cyberattacks targeting government systems and the financial sector in February 2026.
The UAE Cybersecurity Council described the attacks as "organised, terrorist-natured," marking a qualitative shift in adversary tactics.
Approximately 200,000 cyberattacks are detected and countered daily on UAE networks, with 128 confirmed cyber threats recorded since the start of 2026.
Banks and financial institutions are among the primary targets, facing ransomware, AI-generated phishing, and deepfake-enabled fraud risks.
The SCA and ADGM FSRA require licensed financial firms to maintain robust cybersecurity governance, independent IT audits, and operational resilience frameworks.
Security specialists urge financial firms to adopt AI-driven active defence, behaviour-based anomaly detection, and regular staff training on social-engineering threats.

UAE Cybersecurity Council Signals a New Era of AI-Enabled Threats to Financial Services

The UAE Cybersecurity Council's disclosure of a coordinated, AI-driven attack campaign has placed digital resilience at the top of the agenda for financial institutions across the country. As a regional hub for fintech innovation and cross-border capital flows, the UAE operates an integrated digital financial infrastructure that creates both opportunity and systemic cyber exposure. The Council's warning that AI has fundamentally rebalanced the threat equation signals that organisations relying on legacy security frameworks are now acutely vulnerable.

The SCA (Securities and Commodities Authority) and the ADGM FSRA (Abu Dhabi Global Market Financial Services Regulatory Authority) have already embedded cybersecurity and operational resilience obligations into their governance frameworks for digital financial services. These requirements - covering independent IT audits, algorithm oversight, and technology governance - now intersect directly with the threat patterns exposed by the February 2026 attacks. For advisory firms and wealth platforms operating under these frameworks, strengthening the security posture is no longer optional; it is an urgent regulatory and operational imperative.

UAE Discloses Coordinated AI-Driven Attack Campaign

On 22 February 2026, UAE authorities confirmed they had successfully blocked a wave of sophisticated cyberattacks that used artificial intelligence to target the country's digital infrastructure and vital sectors. The UAE Cybersecurity Council and state news agency WAM described the campaigns as "organised cyber attacks of a terrorist nature," representing a qualitative shift in the methods used by hostile groups. AI was embedded across the full attack lifecycle - from initial reconnaissance through to attempted data exfiltration.

Attacks targeted government digital platforms, national payment systems, and financial services institutions, according to official briefings cited by Bloomberg and The National News. Techniques deployed included network infiltration attempts, ransomware deployment, and phishing campaigns engineered to adapt in real time and evade conventional detection systems. Advanced national monitoring infrastructure detected the activity early, allowing authorities to isolate suspicious traffic and neutralise threats before large-scale disruption could occur.

Scale of the Threat - 200,000 Attacks Detected Every Day

The latest AI-driven campaigns sit within a much wider pattern of persistent cyber aggression against UAE systems. The Cybersecurity Council has confirmed that UAE emergency systems are detecting and countering approximately 200,000 cyberattacks per day across national networks. Since the start of 2026 alone, 128 confirmed cyber threat incidents have been recorded, including ransomware, data leaks, and breaches of government systems.

Dr Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cybersecurity for the UAE Government and Chairman of the UAE Cybersecurity Council, stated that adversaries are now using AI to compress attack timelines to machine speed. Reconnaissance, exploitation, and data exfiltration can now be executed faster than manual incident-response teams can react - a critical vulnerability for organisations still dependent on legacy perimeter-based defences. The Council characterised this evolution as a "qualitative transformation" in the regional threat landscape.

Financial Sector in the Crosshairs

Banks and financial institutions have featured prominently among the targets within the broader pattern of AI-enhanced attacks, according to analysts and official statements. The UAE's position as a regional financial and fintech hub - with digitised payment rails, cross-border capital flows, and data-rich client platforms - creates elevated systemic exposure to AI-driven cyber operations. Risks include direct financial losses, data-theft-driven fraud, disruption to trading and payment systems, and confidence shocks if core banking infrastructure were affected.

Contextual analysis from UAE-based cybersecurity consultancies highlighted AI-powered social engineering as the primary attack vector for many business-focused campaigns. Machine-learning systems can scrape social media and public data to generate hyper-personalised phishing emails, while deepfake voice technology is increasingly used to impersonate executives and authorise fraudulent payments. These risks are particularly severe for financial advisory practices and wealth management firms, which hold sensitive KYC (Know Your Customer - identity verification) files, investment records, and authentication credentials that can be exploited for account takeover and investment fraud.

What Regulators Now Require from Financial Firms

The UAE's regulatory framework has already begun to reflect the rising cyber threat facing digital financial services. The SCA's rules for robo-advisory platforms - that is, automated, algorithm-driven investment management services - require licensed portfolio managers to maintain strong algorithm governance, conduct independent IT audits, and implement robust cybersecurity and data-protection controls. The ADGM FSRA's Digital Investment Manager framework similarly mandates technology governance, operational resilience, and explicit measures to manage cyberattack risk and ensure explainable AI outcomes.

These regulatory obligations now align directly with the practical defensive measures that security specialists are recommending for firms across the sector. Key priorities include encrypting client data at rest and in transit, enforcing multi-factor authentication (MFA - a login process requiring two or more identity verifications), segmenting networks to restrict privileged access, and running continuous system patching and testing. Independent IT and cybersecurity audits should assess both infrastructure integrity and the security of AI models used in client-facing processes.

Building Resilience - What Firms Should Do Now

Security specialists warn that traditional firewalls and signature-based detection - tools that match incoming threats against known attack patterns - are no longer adequate against adaptive, AI-enabled offensives. Financial institutions are being urged to invest in behaviour-based anomaly detection, automated threat-hunting, and continuous security validation. For many firms, this will require rethinking both technology infrastructure and the governance frameworks that underpin it.

On the human side, regular staff training on AI-assisted phishing and CEO-fraud (also called business email compromise) scenarios is now considered an essential control. Firms should maintain clear incident-response playbooks aligned with national cyber-incident reporting channels, and update business-continuity plans to cover ransomware and data-wiping attack scenarios. The Cybersecurity Council has signalled that national cybersecurity policies will continue to evolve alongside emerging AI threats, including deepfakes, advanced social-engineering schemes, and AI-enhanced malware - meaning the security requirements placed on financial firms are likely to intensify further.

What Clients are Asking their Advisors

What is an AI-powered cyberattack and why is it more dangerous than traditional hacking?

An AI-powered cyberattack uses machine learning to automate and adapt attack methods in real time - for example, generating convincing phishing emails tailored to specific individuals, or enabling malware to evade detection by adjusting its own behaviour. This makes attacks faster, more scalable, and far harder to defend against than conventional, rule-based hacking tools.

What cybersecurity steps should UAE financial advisory firms take immediately following these attacks?

Regulators and security specialists recommend prioritising multi-factor authentication, encrypting client data at rest and in transit, segmenting networks to limit access, and commissioning independent IT audits. Firms should also update their incident-response playbooks and run regular staff training on AI-generated phishing emails and deepfake voice-call fraud scenarios.

Are UAE cybersecurity regulations for financial firms as rigorous as international standards?

The SCA and ADGM FSRA frameworks require licensed digital investment managers and robo-advisory platforms to meet technology governance, IT audit, and operational resilience standards that broadly align with international benchmarks such as those from IOSCO. However, the February 2026 attacks reinforce that regulatory compliance alone is not sufficient - firms must invest in active, AI-enhanced defences that go beyond minimum requirements.

What are the consequences for clients if a UAE bank or wealth firm is successfully breached by an AI-driven attack?

A successful breach could expose sensitive KYC data, investment records, and authentication credentials, enabling identity theft, account takeover, and investment fraud. Beyond direct financial losses, disruption to core banking or payment systems could trigger regulatory investigations and cause lasting damage to client confidence in the affected institution.