Check Point Exec Says AI Has Made Hackers So Fast That 46.9% of Companies Were Attacked in Just Four Days

A Check Point SoftwareCHKP executive says attackers using artificial intelligence now move faster than many security teams can respond. On CNBC on October 26, 2026, Adam Ely spoke. The general manager of AI agent security at Check Point said about 46.9% of companies have been attacked in the last four days, up from just 10% four days earlier. Ely did not say what sample the figure comes from, for example whether it covers only Check Point’s own customers.

“We’ve never seen a fundamental shift in attackers’ capability and their efficiency, as we have with the introduction of AI by attackers,” Ely said. “I was a CISO for many years. I never had to respond to attacks this fast.” A CISO, or chief information security officer, is the executive in charge of protecting a company’s systems and data.

AI Has Erased the Hacker Talent Bottleneck

For decades, sophisticated attacks were limited by how few skilled human hackers existed. Ely said that limit is going away: “We’re seeing the number of vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit increase exponentially at a faster rate than we ever have in history. Attackers used AI to automate their attacks.”

Sophia Velastegui, CEO of Velastegui Ventures and former chief AI technology officer at MicrosoftMSFT, appeared in the same segment and described how much the timeline has shrunk. “What used to take weeks to find these hidden cracks? Now, with the burglars as well as the attackers, we’re talking about hours,” she said. “They’re also using AI in order to build the method to break in.” According to the segment, AI was used to find the recent critical PHP vulnerabilities, and attackers then automated their exploitation.

Check Point CEO Nadav Zafrir made the same argument on the July earnings call, saying “AI and particularly the latest frontier model, is driving a collapse in scarcity of adversarial capabilities.”

Check Point Pairs AI Prevention With a New Way to Pay

Ely said the traditional approach of learning about a problem and then fixing it no longer keeps up. “Now we’re seeing that the number of problems is increasing at such a rapid pace that the teams are overwhelmed. So where we’ve invested at Check Point is building our own foundational models and bringing AI to our solutions to provide companies with preventive technology that can stop the attacks even when we don’t know about them.”

On Monday, Check Point announced Firewall-as-a-Subscription. StreetInsider reported that it becomes available Nov. 1. Ely said the offering gives CFOs “a predictable monthly or annual spend.” Security teams “can get all of the latest AI-powered technology, stopping 99.9% of unknown attacks, while Check Point carries the hardware capital costs.” The 99.9% figure is Check Point’s own claim.

For customers, this means paying a steady recurring bill in place of a large upfront hardware purchase, while for Check Point, it could make revenue more recurring and predictable, but the company takes on the hardware cost.

The shift matches where Check Point’s growth already is. In the second quarter, security subscriptions revenue rose 12% year over year to $332.6 million, while products and licenses fell to $113.4 million, according to the company’s Q2 filing with the SEC. Total revenue grew 1.3% to $673.6 million, and non-GAAP EPS of $2.55 came in above the $2.45 estimate. Management said demand for firewall appliances was weak, and it expected the third quarter to be “the trough,” with guidance for non-GAAP EPS of $2.43 to $2.53.

Second quarter at a glance

Shares Rebound but Remain Down for 2026

As of 11:38 AM ET Monday, Check Point traded at $161, up 1.24% on the day. The stock has gained 16.78% over the past week and 14.05% over the past month, but it is still down 13.24% year to date. Shares of rival CrowdStrikeCRWD have been bid up as an AI play. Wall Street’s consensus price target is $147.12, and ratings lean conservative, with 25 hold ratings, 12 buys and 1 strong buy.

What to Watch Next

• Subscription adoption: how quickly customers sign up for Firewall-as-a-Subscription after it launches Nov. 1.
• Revenue mix: whether moving hardware into subscriptions changes the split between product and subscription revenue, and what it does to margins as Check Point covers the hardware cost.
• The bottom call: whether third-quarter results confirm management’s view that product revenue returns to growth in the fourth quarter.
• Security budgets: Check Point lists AI-driven threats as a reason cybersecurity spending is rising, and if attacks keep speeding up at the rate Ely describes, that would support the company’s expectation that budgets will grow.