A study found that the frequency of cyber attacks on customer-facing mobile apps has surged in recent years as AI lowers the technical, time and cost barriers for attackers.

According to a recent report by Infosecurity Magazine, DevOps specialist Digital.ai compiled its 2026 application security threat report by collecting telemetry data from billions of app instances at client companies in finance, healthcare, automotive and telecommunications.

The report found that 87 percent of monitored apps were attacked in 2026. That is a sharp increase from 55 percent in 2022. Digital.ai said the rise coincides with the spread of AI model use after the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.

By sector, apps in financial services (91 percent), automotive (91 percent) and medical devices (86 percent) were attacked the most.

Digital.ai said agentic AI allows even low-skilled attackers to complete in a few hours tasks that previously took professional teams weeks. It said AI is accelerating code analysis, exploit generation and malware mutation.

The gap between iOS and Android has also virtually disappeared. In 2023, attacks on iOS apps were about half the level of those on Android, but by 2026 the figures were nearly similar at 86 percent for iOS and 89 percent for Android. Digital.ai said AI-assisted reverse engineering is making iOS a more attractive target for attackers.

Derek Holt (데릭 홀트), CEO of Digital.ai, said, "Attackers are also using the AI that developers use to build apps," and added, "Every app security team has to decide whether to build security in before release or respond only after being attacked."