In a nutshell: Cybercriminals in Germany increasingly use social engineering and impersonation of legitimate processes instead of pure malware techniques, as the Gen Report shows with increases of 134 percent in fake shop fraud and 160 percent in dropper malware.
The Gen Threat Report for the first half of 2026 documents a massive increase in cyber threats in Germany. Cybercriminals are increasingly relying on social engineering and imitating legitimate processes rather than focusing solely on technical vulnerabilities.
According to the current report by cybersecurity company Gen, Germany recorded significant increases in several attack types in the first half of 2026. Dropper malware rose by 160 percent, trojans by 145 percent. Fraud attempts via counterfeit online shops rose by 134 percent. Remote access trojans increased by 69 percent, phishing attacks by 47 percent. Overall fraud risk increased by 52 percent, attacks on access credentials by 34 percent, malicious remote access software by 37 percent.
Cybercriminals are increasingly relying on social engineering and are abusing trusted platforms as well as legitimate everyday processes. Examples include fraud attempts using real hotel bookings, the misuse of verified financial accounts, manipulated WhatsApp messages, fake software updates, and deceptively designed Windows error pages. A frequently observed method is attacks posing as technical support: Gen blocked approximately 20.3 million of these fraud attempts globally in the first half of 2026. Germany was particularly affected with 2.3 million cases and ranked third after the USA and France.
Identity fraud is gaining significant importance. Globally, attacks in which perpetrators impersonate family members increased by 454 percent compared to the second half of 2025 – a trend particularly affecting Western Europe including Germany. The misuse of counterfeit online shops shows similar dynamics: Gen blocked over 114 million attacks in this category globally, an increase of 109 percent. A considerable portion fell on European countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
As a new risk area, Gen identifies the use of so-called AI agents that operate independently on the internet, manage files, install programs, or communicate with other services. The report also records 1.9 billion blocked tracking attempts worldwide, one million web skimming attacks (plus 212 percent), and over 15.7 million compromised records with email addresses.
Source: www.it-daily.net · Published July 23, 2026
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