Disinformation is a Top Global Risk in the Munich Security Index 2026

Narrative attacks created by misinformation and disinformation now rank as the third most serious risk facing G7 nations, according to the 2026 Munich Security Report. Much like the recent World Economic Forum Global Risks Report, disinformation is intertwined with the other top risks, including cyberattacks and economic challenges, and impacts them all. Five years ago, when the Munich Security Index first launched, disinformation ranked 12th out of 32 risk categories. Its nine-position climb ties with trade wars for the steepest rise in the dataset, and the trajectory demonstrates that the world’s largest democracies now view weaponized narratives as a significant threat.

That ranking represents one of the sharpest shifts in the Munich Security Index’s five-year history. In 2021, when the index launched, disinformation ranked 12th among 32 risks evaluated by respondents in G7 countries. It has climbed nine positions since then, tied for the largest upward move of any risk category in the dataset. The direction is unambiguous, and the implications for organizations are immediate.

READ: The RAV3N Report: 2026 State of Disinformation Narrative Intelligence

The Data Behind the Shift

The Munich Security Index, produced annually by the Munich Security Conference and Kekst CNC, surveys respondents across 11 countries (the G7 nations and the BICS countries: Brazil, India, China, South Africa) and evaluates the perceived seriousness of 32 distinct risks. The 2026 edition reveals several converging patterns that explain why disinformation has ascended so rapidly.

Figure 1.9: The G7 risk bump chart, aggregate ranking of risks by G7 countries, 2021–2025. Source: Munich Security Conference / Kekst CNC.

The G7 risk bump chart (Figure 1.9) captures the shift in aggregate. Cyberattacks on nation states now rank #1, up three positions since 2021. An economic or financial crisis ranks #2, up five positions. Disinformation campaigns from enemies landed at #3, up nine positions, the joint-steepest climb in the entire index alongside trade wars.

These three risks have displaced the environmental concerns that dominated earlier editions. Climate change generally, which held the #1 position from 2021 through 2024, dropped to #6. Extreme weather and forest fires fell from #2 to #4. The report’s authors note that despite rising costs associated with global warming, the share of respondents who perceive environmental risks as imminent has declined to a new low.

A Converging Threat Landscape

The displacement pattern matters because it reveals how security leaders now perceive the threat landscape. The top three G7 risks (cyberattacks, economic crisis, and disinformation) are deeply interconnected. Narrative attacks increasingly serve as the opening phase of cyber campaigns, amplify financial disruptions, and erode the institutional trust required to mount coordinated responses.

Figure 1.8: The change heatmap, November 2025, change in index scores since November 2024. Source: Munich Security Conference / Kekst CNC.

The change heatmap (Figure 1.8) offers additional granularity. Disinformation’s year-over-year index scores rose in several major economies, including India (+4), South Africa (0, holding steady at elevated levels), and the United Kingdom (+5). Across the G7 and BICS countries, the perceived seriousness of the United States and trade wars as risks surged sharply, and both categories involve areas where coordinated narrative campaigns have been documented to amplify them.

The Munich report findings arrive alongside consistent signals from other major risk assessments. The WEF has identified disinformation as a top-tier risk for three consecutive years, and Gartner predicts enterprise spending on combating disinformation will exceed $30 billion by 2028.

Why Traditional Security Frameworks Miss the Narrative Attack Threat

The Munich data underscores a gap that many organizations have yet to close. Traditional risk frameworks treat cyber threats, financial risks, and reputational threats as separate domains with distinct response playbooks. The convergence visible in the Munich Security Index suggests that the approach is outdated.

A narrative attack targeting a company’s supply chain reliability can trigger stock declines, attract regulatory scrutiny, and create the conditions for a follow-on cyber intrusion, all from a single coordinated campaign. When disinformation sits alongside cyberattacks and financial crises at the top of a global risk index, it signals that the boundaries between these threat categories have collapsed.

The report also highlights a polarization problem. Russia, which ranked as the #2 G7 risk as recently as 2024, dropped to #8 in 2025. The perceived seriousness of Russia as a threat has declined across all surveyed countries, even as Russian-linked narrative campaigns continue to target elections, energy markets, and defense alliances. This gap between perceived and actual threat levels is itself a vulnerability, one that sophisticated adversaries exploit.

What Automation in AI Means for Narrative Attack Risk

The Munich data becomes more significant when viewed through the lens of AI-enabled threats. Autonomous robots and artificial intelligence climbed 12 positions in the G7 risk ranking since 2021, the single largest upward move in the dataset. Meanwhile, the WEF’s 2026 report noted that the adverse outcomes of AI technologies showed the largest ranking jump of any risk over time, moving from #30 in the short term to #5 over a ten-year horizon.

These trajectories are converging. AI-generated content has lowered costs and increased the scale of narrative attacks, enabling threat actors to continuously create, test, amplify, and adjust disinformation campaigns. The reactive model, where a story breaks and organizations respond, no longer reflects how influence operates at machine speed.

The Way Forward – Key Takeaways For Organization Leaders

• Integrate narrative intelligence into existing security operations. The Munich Security Index shows that disinformation, cyber threats, and financial risks are now perceived as equally severe by G7 populations. Organizations must treat the narrative threat as a new primary attack vector.
• Monitor the gap between perceived and actual threat levels. The decline in Russia’s risk ranking despite ongoing narrative attack campaigns illustrates how adversaries benefit when attention shifts elsewhere. Continuous monitoring of narrative environments, rather than episodic crisis response, is essential to detecting coordinated campaigns before they cause harm.
• Prepare for AI-accelerated narrative attacks. The convergence of rising AI risk perceptions and disinformation attacks in the Munich data points to a near-term future in which autonomous systems drive both the creation and detection of narrative threats. Organizations need an AI-assisted narrative intelligence platform to proactively monitor and respond to these attacks before they escalate, significantly reducing risk.

Threat actors and nation-states are creating AI-based narrative attacks because they are highly effective, and organizations remain unprepared. In Blackbird.AI’s The RAV3N Report: 2026 State of Disinformation Narrative Intelligence, survey results from executives and organizational leaders indicate that, critically, while 58% of organizations have been affected by narrative attacks, only 18% are confident in their current tools to detect them. Organizations need to act now to embed narrative intelligence into their security posture, as the data show that disinformation sits alongside cyberattacks and financial crises at the top of the 2026 Munich Security Report. The gap between that reality and most organizations’ defensive posture is where the next crisis will start.

• Gartner has named Blackbird.AI the Company to Beat for Disinformation Narrative Intelligence in its latest AI Vendor Race report.
• Request your confidential narrative risk report here.