News Cybersecurity: what does 2026 hold for SMEs?

2025 was a turbulent year for cybersecurity, including in Belgium. One of the most notable incidents was the cyberattack on Collins Aerospace, which caused major disruptions at Brussels Airport. Additionally, the number of cyberattacks on small and medium-sized Belgian companies rose by just over 50% compared to the previous year.

These are just some of the conclusions from Orange Cyberdefense’s Security Navigator 2026. The latest edition of this annual report on key trends in cyber threats, attacks and vulnerabilities is based on over 139,000 security incidents that occurred between October 2024 and September 2025.
 

Challenges for SMEs

SMEs are increasingly targeted by cybercriminals, which poses major challenges. They receive as many security alerts as larger companies but have fewer resources and less advanced security systems. On top of that, half of these alerts are false positives, taking up the valuable time of small security teams and leaving less time to analyse real threats.

Around 70% of cyber incidents affecting SMEs are caused by malware. Key weaknesses remain in their cybersecurity, like inadequate patching policies, vulnerable publicly accessible endpoints and other fundamental cyber hygiene shortcomings.
 

Practical recommendations

To support SMEs in Belgium in combating cybercrime, Orange Cyberdefense recommends:

• Choose quality over quantity
  Invest in detection tools that minimise false positives. Evaluate vendors and managed service providers based on this criterion.
   
• Focus on the basics 
  SMEs with limited security budgets should prioritise fundamental cyber hygiene, such as automated patching, strong authentication and up-to-date endpoint protection.
• Partner with an experienced provider
  Have your cybersecurity at least partially managed by an experienced service provider. Discuss a cost-effective, tailored solution with transparent incident handling.

Orange Cyberdefense’s report is based on data from Micro-SOC, our internal service that monitored over 1.5 million endpoints from September 2024 to September 2025. Micro-SOC is a fully managed platform for detecting and addressing cyber threats. Automation resolves 85% of incidents within one hour. More complex attacks require the human expertise of our experienced security analysts.