Geopolitical tension highlights the need for risk intelligence

Within hours of the first U.S.-Israel strikes against Iran in February 2026, hacktivists went to work launching massive distributed denial-of-service attacks. Both pro- and anti-Iranian groups targeted oil and gas providers, telecommunications companies, military and government agencies, supervisory control and data acquisition systems, and news organizations in the Middle East.

International developments like these are sending a clear message: Whether stirred by regional conflict, leadership changes, economic sanctions or other factors, geopolitical tensions directly drive cyber risks. Organizations are being forced to assess their exposure level immediately.

The ripple effects impact global cyber and business operations, supply chains and the regulatory environment. They force chief information security officers and corporate leaders to ask themselves, “How is this affecting us in the countries where we do business? What activity should we monitor the most?” Ultimately, these leaders are arriving at the unsettling conclusion that geopolitical divisions and cyber risk are increasingly inseparable, and they must take proactive steps to minimize potential fallout.

To do so, they need optimal cyberthreat intelligence, or CTI, to help them interpret fast-moving events in context and to make better decisions in an increasingly complex world. Unfortunately, this isn’t happening yet, at least not at the level required for today’s rapidly shifting landscape: Though 91% of CISOs value CTI, only one-quarter say it significantly influences their decisions.

Simply stated, chief information security officers need CTI that goes beyond “interesting news” to insightful intelligence, which changes how organizations allocate resources, to transform global tension into actionable information that lowers risk. This requires intelligence already validated against their environment, prioritized against what adversaries are doing right now and aligned to their specific business context to inform next steps.

CTI components

With this in mind, here are three essential components of a modern, geopolitically focused CTI strategy:

Comprehensive and constantly adjusted assessments. Enterprises should conduct structured, regularly updated assessments of key hotspots to link regions of friction to potential operational and cyber disruptions. Security teams need to understand what is happening and why it matters. They arrive at such conclusions by monitoring international hotspots over time, identifying where events intersect with business exposure and determining which risk signals could lead to cyber, operational or economic turbulence.

It’s crucial for these assessments to evolve constantly, with continuous intelligence workflows and adaptive, coherent narratives. CISOs and their teams have to communicate them in ways that connect with business units. The enterprise must recognize how indispensable a role CTI plays in achieving critical, strategic goals, rather than viewing it as a relatively ignored background exercise.

An eye on connected points of interest. Global conflict has an impact on more than just internal cyber and business functions. This is why security teams should conduct intelligence gathering that also considers mergers and acquisitions risk assessments, supply chain threat profiles and brand exposure.

A routine response and communications environment. Whenever conflict emerges – and even during quieter times – CISOs and their teams must establish a lockstep response and communications plan. This could include:

• Monthly one-pagers that map actively exploited common vulnerabilities and exposures to the organization’s environment, with prioritized remediation recommendations.
• Standardized incident after-action reports that demonstrate CTI value through real outcomes to justify investment.
• Insight feeds that align intelligence investments to actual decisions executives are making, so they understand which risks require immediate action, where to allocate security spending, and how to present this to the board.

The world isn’t standing still, and neither should we. To not only respond to – but stay ahead of – the next conflict, leadership or regime change, or point of tension, security teams require more than raw feeds from their CTI. They need a living assessment of critical geographic hotspots that separate meaningful signals from the noise.

Through adaptive hotspot assessments, connected business and operations monitoring, and the routine delivery of response and communications insights, these teams develop a coherent narrative of risk, illustrating how it intersects with cyber and operational outcomes. As a result, they emerge as a new sphere of influence for their organizations, presenting a clear picture that decisively answers the “What is going on and why does it matter?” question – whenever and wherever it’s happening.

Hannah Maldonado is senior director of geopolitical analysis at cyber threat intelligence firm Intel 471 Inc. She wrote this article for SiliconANGLE.

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