Cyber threats reach 74% of EU workers but awareness support lags

Almost three-quarters of EU employees have encountered suspicious emails, messages or links at work, but fewer than half say their organisation regularly provides cybersecurity information or awareness updates.

The findings come from a European Commission Eurobarometer survey examining cybersecurity awareness and preparedness in the workplace, highlighted by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) during European Cybersecurity Month.

Over the six months covered by the survey, 74% of employees reported receiving suspicious emails, text or voice messages, or links. Yet only 45% said their organisation regularly provides cybersecurity information or awareness updates.

The gap matters as the methods used to target employees continue to evolve. ENISA’s latest threat landscape, based on analysis of more than 8,000 events, points to the continued use of social engineering alongside greater use of AI by malicious actors.

Phishing Remains the Most Common Threat

Phishing and fraudulent emails were the most commonly reported suspicious activity in the Eurobarometer survey, encountered by 39% of employees.

Attempts to steal personal data were reported by 18%, while workers also encountered malware, attempts to steal passwords, ransomware and AI-generated scams.

Employees appear aware of the potential consequences. A total of  83% said a cyberattack would have serious consequences for their organisation, while 82% rated their organisation’s digital systems and tools as effective against cyberattacks.

Technical confidence, however, does not remove the role employees play when a suspicious message reaches them.

ENISA’s separate threat landscape found that social engineering remains part of attackers’ methods, including phishing and ClickFix techniques designed to manipulate users into taking an action, like manually running hidden malicious commands on their computers.

Cybercrime accounted for 36% of the incidents analysed by ENISA during its reporting period. Among financially motivated activity recorded in 2025, ransomware deployment accounted for 40% of analysed events, followed by data breaches at 31% and fraud and impersonation at 19%.

AI Is Changing the Threats Employees Encounter

ENISA also reports greater use of AI by malicious cyber threat groups to support or enhance their activity.

One of the clearest examples comes from information manipulation. AI-enabled foreign information manipulation and interference campaigns identified by ENISA increased from 41 to 147 in a year, a rise of 259%.

For employers, this extends impact beyond specialist cybersecurity teams. AI-generated scams and more sophisticated social engineering place employees themselves in the path of threats that can be difficult to judge from appearance alone.

That makes workforce preparedness part of the response.

The Eurobarometer found 85% of employees are interested in improving their cybersecurity skills, but workers identified several obstacles to doing so. Lack of time at work was the most commonly cited barrier, reported by 26%, while 16% pointed to cost. Employees also reported insufficient information about training and a lack of employer support.

Workplace Skills Are Struggling to Keep Pace With Change

The cybersecurity findings arrive alongside evidence of a wider gap between technological change and employee development.

Recent PwC research on AI and workforce skills found that 64% of workers had used AI at work during the previous 12 months, up 10 percentage points year-on-year. At the same time, the proportion saying they had access to the learning and development resources they need fell from 59% to 51%.

PwC’s findings are not a measure of cybersecurity training, and the two surveys examine different aspects of the workplace. Together, however, they show employees adapting to rapid technological change while access to development and regular support remains uneven.

That becomes particularly relevant when AI is changing both sides of the equation. Employees are being asked to incorporate AI into their work, while some of the threats they encounter are also being enhanced by the technology.

The challenge for employers is therefore broader than encouraging adoption of new tools. Workers also need the skills to operate safely as the digital environment around those tools changes.

Cybersecurity Awareness Needs to Become Preparedness

ENISA is using European Cybersecurity Month to promote greater awareness and skills development across organisations and the wider public.

Its existing resources include Awareness Raising-in-a-Box, designed to help organisations develop cybersecurity awareness programmes, and the European Cybersecurity Skills Framework, which provides a common reference for cybersecurity roles and skills across the EU.

The Eurobarometer findings suggest the appetite for development already exists. Most employees surveyed want to improve their cybersecurity skills, and most recognise the potential seriousness of an attack.

The more difficult issue is whether organisations are creating enough opportunity for that awareness to become practical capability.

With suspicious content reaching 74% of employees surveyed, workforce preparedness cannot depend on workers encountering a threat and working out the right response themselves. As AI changes how people work and gives malicious actors additional ways to produce convincing content, regular skills development becomes part of how organisations manage the risk.

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