What you'll learn

Since Ukraine in 2022, the security community has understood that cyber operations and kinetic warfare can run as co-equal domains. The February 2026 Middle East offensive shows how much further that model has developed, and how broadly its effects now reach into Western cloud infrastructure, supply chains, and financial systems.

This episode of Security Hot Takes works through the full threat picture. We examine why Iran’s layered architecture of state actors, proxies, and hacktivist collectives continues to operate despite domestic connectivity disruption. We look at who is active, who has gone silent, and what the silence of APT34 likely signals. We cover the spillover risk formally flagged by the UK NCSC and US DHS, and why organisations with indirect dependencies in the region may be more exposed than they realise.

Whether you are a CISO, a security engineer, or a senior leader, this episode gives you the threat picture and three concrete decisions to act on now.