Since 28 February 2026 — the day the United States and Israel struck Iran — Akamai Technologies has recorded a 245 percent increase in malicious internet traffic targeting businesses and institutions across North America, Europe, and parts of Asia-Pacific. That figure, drawn from Akamai's global edge network monitoring data, is not primarily an Iran story. It is a Russia and China story, which makes it considerably more complicated.
Of the source IPs behind the surge, Russia accounts for 35 percent and China 28 percent, according to Akamai's analysis published in March 2026. Iran contributes 14 percent. Researchers at Akamai and Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 group have been careful to note that source IP geography does not equal attacker nationality — both Russia and China host large underground cybercrime service markets that sell attack infrastructure to clients regardless of origin. What the data shows is that criminal and state-aligned threat actors have been systematically exploiting the distraction created by a major geopolitical crisis to intensify opportunistic and targeted attacks.
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