AI is accelerating the speed, scale and cost-efficiency of cyber attacks. Threat actors are now using AI to automate social engineering and exploit exposures across identity, endpoints and cloud environments with minimal effort. As these threats evolve, enterprises face increased risk due to complex supply chains, distributed infrastructure, a surge in vulnerability alerts and overextended security teams, says Pentera.
Against this backdrop, the company will present a session at the ITWeb Security Summit 2026 in Johannesburg, which takes place on 2 and 3 June at the Sandton Convention Centre. The session will focus on reducing mean time to remediation for ransomware and other cyber threats, arguing that organisations must remediate exposures faster through automation as attackers adopt AI-driven techniques.
ITWeb Security Summit 2026
To learn more about defending organisations against today’s evolving cyber threats, register for ITWeb Security Summit 2026 in Johannesburg, where global and local experts will unpack the latest security trends and solutions.
The presentation will also examine how AI-powered security validation helps enterprises test their security controls, remediate security gaps and build cyber resilience and readiness over time.
“AI should strengthen validation, prioritisation and remediation, while execution remains controlled, safe and auditable, especially in production environments,” says Oren Bart, regional manager at Pentera.
The discussion comes as global threat intelligence reports point to a rapidly evolving cyber risk landscape. According to IBM’s 2026 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, active ransomware and extortion groups surged by 49% year on year, while attacks exploiting public-facing applications increased by 44%.
CrowdStrike’s 2026 Global Threat Report found that AI-enabled attacks increased by 89% over the past year, with average breakout times dropping to 29 minutes.
In some cases, attackers moved laterally across networks within seconds, underscoring the shrinking window that defenders have to identify and remediate vulnerabilities before attackers gain momentum.
“In an era of AI-driven attacks, resilience depends on AI-driven continuous exposure validation,” says Bart.
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