University of Kwazulu-Natal

2026 Cybersecurity Trends Predictions Esecurity

Bonisiwe Shabane
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2026 cybersecurity trends predictions esecurity

Published On:October 20, 2025 By: Tom Ruffolo The rate of cybersecurity attacks continues to increase at a rate of 20-50% year over year for major attacks such as malware. As technology continues to evolve, so do the threats and vulnerabilities. Current technology trends, such as the increased use of AI and the migration of corporate assets to the cloud, are leading to a rise in attacks, making them harder to protect. Want a quick summary of 2026 cybersecurity trends, predictions, and solutions to help guide your strategy for the coming year? Then this is your comprehensive guide.

Small and medium businesses are not safe: Around 50% of cyber-attacks target them: Company assets are already in, or quickly moving to, the cloud. This includes company servers, SaaS applications, remote workers, and partners. Securing these remote workloads requires purpose-built 2026 cybersecurity solutions for each asset type. Home » Cybersecurity » 2026 Cyber Predictions: Accelerating AI, Data Sovereignty, and Architecture Rationalization 2026 promises to be a critical period, marked by the confluence of advanced cyber capabilities driven by AI adoption, persistent human-related vulnerabilities, and a rapidly shifting threat landscape.

The focus of every CISO must be strategic and forward-looking, addressing not just today’s risks but those that will define our security posture tomorrow. The most significant shift is the full-scale operationalization of Generative AI by threat actors. We must move past the hype and prepare for AI-driven ransomware and more sophisticated, personalized social engineering attacks. Phishing and social engineering, already a top risk, will become nearly indistinguishable from legitimate communications, increasing the likelihood of a major breach. Our prediction for the next year is a sharp rise in the velocity and volume of these attacks. Simultaneously, more organizations will leverage the growing capabilities of Agentic AI to enhance their cybersecurity controls.

Generative AI will help to bring together signals from AI agents deployed across the infrastructure, but integrating these new sources into an overall threat management program to recognize true benefit will be an uphill... The CISO’s Priority: We must leverage AI on the defensive side—for threat detection, analysis, and response automation—to counter the adversary’s advantage. This is an automation arms race. Furthermore, establishing rigorous AI Governance policies is paramount. If organizations don’t control the secure and ethical use of AI, it will introduce a massive, unmitigated new vector of risk. Enterprises Will Start Treating AI Systems as Insider Threats.

Josh Taylor, Lead Security Analyst, Fortra As agents gain system-level permissions to act across email, file storage, and identity platforms, companies will need to monitor machine behavior for privilege misuse, data leakage, etc. The shift happens when organizations realize their AI assistants have broader access than most employees and operate outside traditional user behavior analytics. The first time an AI agent gets compromised through prompt injection or a supply chain attack and starts quietly exfiltrating customer data under the guise of “helping users,” organizations will realize they built privileged... John Wilson, Senior Fellow, Threat Research, Fortra As artificial intelligence becomes deeply embedded in enterprise operations and cybercriminal arsenals alike, the Cybersecurity Predictions 2026 landscape reveals an unprecedented convergence of autonomous threats, identity-centric attacks, and accelerated digital transformation risks.

Industry experts across leading security firms, government agencies, and research institutions have identified over 100 critical predictions that define the year ahead, a year where AI evolves from a defensive tool to both the... The stakes have never been higher. With ransomware victims projected to increase by 40% compared to 2024, third-party breaches doubling to 30% of all incidents, and AI-driven attacks expected to dominate 50% of the threat landscape, organizations face a fundamental... This comprehensive analysis synthesizes expert forecasts to provide security leaders, practitioners, and decision-makers with actionable intelligence for navigating the most transformative cybersecurity year in modern history. The most significant Cybersecurity Predictions 2026 trend centers on the industrialization of artificial intelligence in cyberattacks. Threat actors are deploying agentic AI—self-directed systems that autonomously plan, execute, and adapt campaigns without human intervention.

2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for IT security. Organisations are navigating a landscape where attackers are evolving just as quickly as the technologies meant to stop them. It has been a quite devastating year for cyber breaches, with many high street names suffering significantly. With AI-driven tools becoming mainstream and global regulations tightening, IT teams will need to rethink how they safeguard data, infrastructure, and user trust. The impact of regulations such as DORA, NIS/2, and the UK’s own Cyber Resilience Bill will start to bite, forcing compliance to become a continuous, monitored process rather than a checkbox exercise. One of the most significant trends will be the rapid adoption of autonomous security systems.

These AI-powered platforms will not only detect anomalies but also take automated corrective action within seconds. While this reduces response times dramatically, it also raises concerns about over-automation, system transparency, and the need for robust governance. Unfortunately, hackers will be using autonomous systems to fight their way through this enhanced security. Identity security will become increasingly important. As the hybrid working becomes the norm, identity will remain the most targeted attack surface. Expect to see widespread deployment of passwordless authentication, continuous risk-based access controls, and decentralised identity frameworks.

Regulatory landscapes will tighten globally, pushing organisations toward higher standards of data protection. Compliance will no longer be a checkbox exercise but a continuous, monitored process integrated throughout IT operations. By the end of 2026, IT security will be defined by automation, intelligence, and resilience. Organisations that invest early in adaptive security architectures will be best positioned to navigate the challenges ahead. Artificial intelligence will be one of the defining features of cyber threats in 2026. Attackers are using AI to automate reconnaissance, craft highly convincing phishing emails, generate malware, and, in some cases, operate autonomous attack campaigns.

At the same time, defenders are deploying AI-driven analytics and behavioural detection to identify anomalies, reduce response times, and keep pace with fast-moving threats. This duality means AI will be central to both offensive and defensive security strategies. AI will also introduce new risks to identity and access control. Automated systems can be manipulated to bypass multi-factor authentication and generate realistic synthetic identities that confuse defences. Security teams will need to develop strong AI governance frameworks and ensure trusted models are used responsibly across the enterprise. Social engineering remains a core attack vector, but in 2026 AI will make these techniques far more sophisticated.

Deepfake technologies can now produce credible audio and video impersonations of executives, suppliers, or trusted colleagues, increasing the risk of fraudulent authorisations, financial scams, and credential theft. In a survey by Regula, 53 per cent of UK and US financial professionals reported encountering AI-generated deepfake scams, and this trend is expected to intensify. Because these attacks can be highly personalised and contextually convincing, traditional awareness training alone may no longer be sufficient. Organisations will need stronger verification processes and improved identity validation controls to protect against messages that appear genuine but are not. Ransomware will remain a major cyber security challenge in 2026. Attackers are increasingly moving beyond simple data encryption towards multi-layered extortion, combining system disruption with data theft and threats of public exposure.

This places greater pressure on organisations to maintain robust incident response plans and reliable, offline backups that can be restored without engaging attackers. The perimeter is gone. Credentials are no longer sufficient. And security can no longer rely on static controls in a dynamic threat environment. Cybersecurity has always evolved in response to attacker innovation, but the pace of change over the last few years has been unprecedented—particularly with the emergence of weaponized AI to scale phishing, deepfakes, and voice... As we head toward 2026, several structural shifts are becoming impossible to ignore.

Traditional security assumptions are breaking down, threat actors are scaling faster than defenders, and identity—not infrastructure—has become the primary battleground. Here are five predictions that will shape the cybersecurity landscape in 2026: 1. Identity Will Fully Replace the Network as the Primary Attack Surface How Veterans Can Bridge the Cybersecurity Skill Gap If you’re a veteran reading this, chances are you would

10 Hidden VA (GI Bill®) Education Benefits Every Service Member Should Know What Are VA (GI Bill®) Education Benefits and Why Do Master’s in Cybersecurity vs Master’s in Information Security: What’s the Difference? As cyberthreats grow more intelligent, automated and persistent, 2026 will challenge organisations to rethink how they defend people, platforms and critical data in an era defined by Artificial Intelligence-driven attacks and relentless digital change. We hear from leading experts who outline what they think 2026 will hold. Cybersecurity in 2026 will be shaped by a collision of accelerating innovation, expanding attack surfaces and a threat landscape that is evolving faster than most organisations can comfortably track.

As Artificial Intelligence becomes deeply embedded across business operations and Digital Transformation initiatives push data and workloads further into cloud and Edge Computing environments, adversaries are adapting just as quickly. From more automated cyberattacks and highly targeted social engineering to growing pressure on critical infrastructure and software supply chains, the year ahead is expected to test the resilience of security teams at every level. Against this backdrop, industry leaders are rethinking strategies, investments and operating models to stay ahead of emerging cyberthreats while balancing risk, regulation and business growth.

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