European governments and companies are being urged to prepare for a more dangerous and sophisticated cyber threat landscape in 2026 after a forecast from Google, reported by Infosecurity Magazine, signaled an uptick in operations that blur the line between virtual intrusion and physical disruption. The analysis points to sustained high volumes of China-nexus activity, a persistent Iranian willingness to use destructive tools, a strategic recalibration by Russian actors, and an expansion of North Korean schemes across Europe that together raise the stakes for critical infrastructure and the private sector.

According to the forecast, China-nexus operations are expected to continue outpacing activity attributed to other nations next year, with emphasis placed on stealth and operational scale. That combination—more frequent intrusions carried out with greater care to avoid detection—creates a longer reconnaissance window and a higher probability of persistent access to networks controlling essential services. For Europe, where energy grids, transportation systems and healthcare increasingly depend on interconnected digital control systems, those characteristics amplify the risk that espionage could evolve into physical disruption.

Iranian activity, the forecast says, will be driven largely by regime survival and regional influence amid ongoing geopolitical conflicts, and will carry an elevated risk of wiper deployments. Destructive malware that incapacitates systems has the potential to cascade beyond targeted networks, interrupting supply chains and emergency services. The prospect of politically motivated destructive attacks heightens the imperative for organizations to bolster backups, incident response readiness and cross-border coordination.

The picture of Russian cyber activity is shifting from short-term tactical support for conflict-related objectives to a longer game. Google’s analysis signals that Russia will prioritize developing advanced cyber capabilities, collecting intelligence to support broader political and economic aims, and obtaining strategic footholds within international critical infrastructure environments. Such footholds can be dormant for extended periods before being leveraged, creating persistent latent risk that complicates attribution and remediation.

North Korea’s operations are expected to expand through IT worker schemes, especially across Europe, posing both financial and espionage threats. These schemes can siphon funds and provide cover for intelligence-gathering activity that targets corporate secrets and government data. For businesses, the challenge is twofold: detect financially motivated intrusion attempts while also guarding against covert data collection that can inform future state-directed campaigns.

Taken together, the forecast paints a 2026 in which the convergence of cyber and physical domains intensifies. The combination of stealth, scale, destructive capabilities and human-facilitated schemes means defenders must prioritize resilience as well as prevention. That will require deeper information-sharing across borders, accelerated investments in industrial control system defenses, rigorous supply-chain scrutiny and expanded incident response cooperation between the private and public sectors. For Europe, the year ahead may cement the need to treat cyber threats not merely as technical problems, but as integral components of national security and societal continuity.