7 Predictions For Cybersecurity And Resilience In 2026

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 27, 2025, 4:36 PM

7 predictions for cybersecurity and resilience in 2026

Elimination of federal funding for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center® (MS-ISAC®) ... cyber threat actors (CTAs') ongoing use of artificial intelligence (AI) ... the AWS outage in October ... these and similar developments created new risks for organizations like yours in 2025. In doing so, they shifted the conversation around your cybersecurity and compliance priorities going forward. There's so much change to decipher.

Where do you focus your efforts? To put next year into context, we spoke to seven experts at the Center for Internet Security® (CIS®) about their 2026 cybersecurity predictions. Here's what they had to say. AI Continues to Dominate the Headlines and Security Landscape. We will require contextualization of specific AI applications and use cases, including Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agentic AI, and Large Language Models (LLMs), and we will need to consider each in its own right. As more decision-making is placed on these technologies, organizations will need to assess them as tools, technologies, and personas within their environments — each with its own risk profile.

Focused and Specific Threats to Critical Infrastructure and U.S. State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial (SLTT) Entities. Threats and risks facing these organizations continue to grow and become more sophisticated. Organizations need assistance in the way of preparation, training, and support to confront talent shortages — all while navigating a lack of funding. by Serena Raymond on Oct 30, 2025 8:00:01 AM AI and other technologies are fundamentally reshaping the security world.

It’s never too early to prepare, which is why we're dropping our predictions for 2026 ahead of schedule! We went straight to the source, surveying our internal team of cybersecurity and technology specialists to find out where they see the battle lines forming. Here’s what our experts predict. From Mikey Pruitt, Global Partner Evangelist AI is no longer a trend on the edge of tech and security; today, it has become the backbone of how businesses operate, secure, and scale. In fact, AI traffic on the DNSFilter network has grown 69% over the past 12 months.

For MSPs, that means survival and success will hinge on offering AI-powered services. Those who fail to adapt will be outpaced and out-innovated. AI is being used in countless ways to make workflows more efficient, and MSPs need to be creating these AI automations. There is a huge opportunity for them to provide education on how to use AI and build AI automations for their clients, but the challenge is that they must do this in addition to... They can’t afford to slip on cybersecurity, cloud services, or anything else; they have to add this new service. However, the upside for MSPs that pull this off is that there’s a lot of room to make money, strengthen their brand reputation, and differentiate their company in an ever-growing ecosystem.

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

2026 will be a defining year for cybersecurity. AI-driven attacks are accelerating, security programs are maturing fast, and organizations are realizing that reactive approaches are no longer enough. Across every prediction from HackerOne security leaders, one theme stands out: the need for continuous validation powered by both AI and human ingenuity. From agentic security and CTEM adoption to supply-chain risk and sector-specific threats, leaders agree that security in 2026 will reward organizations that test early, test often, and treat autonomy with caution. The hackbots and AI “arms race” in cybersecurity will reach a tipping point in 2026, driving deeper collaboration between security researchers and organizations to counter increasingly autonomous cyber threats. In the year ahead, the cybersecurity landscape will enter a new phase of escalation as AI systems become more autonomous and intertwined across both attack and defensive strategies.

The DARPA-funded AIxCC competition has shown how powerful AI can be at identifying and patching vulnerabilities, and I believe we will see dramatic improvements in this realm. Organizations have started taking a more mature approach to the security posture of their own AI deployments. Over the past year, organizations have increased testing of their AI assets by 270%*, signaling a shift in how AI is implemented and secured. This surge in AI deployments is reshaping the threat landscape, as the number of AI-related vulnerabilities jumped 200% and prompt-injection reports soared 540% in 2025. Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2026. Read them in this 18th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

AI and other technology and ecosystem shifts are transforming cybersecurity at a fundamental level. DNSFilter talked with its internal team of cybersecurity and technology specialists to discover what's ahead on the threat landscape. Their predictions highlight the need for a proactive security strategy that is agile enough to meet the challenge of generative AI and its impact on security. Companies must be willing to implement new tools and methods as needed. Seeing just beyond the cybercrime horizon will empower companies to stay ahead of emerging threats and safeguard their future. From this discussion, my team and I've compiled seven predictions for the coming year.

Data troves will enable more effective attacks Cybercriminals are combining contextual data and noisy data to create and launch sophisticated and personalized attacks. For example, by pairing PII (including personal and healthcare information) with geolocation data, attackers can make intelligent deductions about your daily life and design increasingly targeted and convincing campaigns to trick you. These bad actors may be able to determine that you recently injured yourself and are undergoing physical therapy at a specific clinic. Then, those bad actors could send a malicious email impersonating that clinic, which includes detailed, convincing information. This will make you far more likely to click, respond or take the action the threat actor wants you to take.

- Constantin Jacob, manager, engineering, security intelligence and solutions. AI has shifted from an emerging trend to the backbone of how companies operate, secure and scale. The DNSFilter network saw a 69% increase in AI traffic over the last 12 months. For managed service providers (MSPs) in the coming year, survival and success will depend on offering AI-powered services. Failure to adapt will result in being outpaced. Cybersecurity is advancing faster than ever, and as we move into 2026, organizations are navigating a digital environment that’s more dynamic, and more dangerous, than before.

From AI-driven attacks that evolve in real time to the emergence of quantum computing and deepfake deception, businesses must adapt quickly to stay secure. The rapid growth of remote and hybrid work, combined with an expanding cloud and IoT ecosystem, has widened the attack surface dramatically. Meanwhile, new regulations and tighter cyber insurance requirements are reshaping how companies think about compliance, data protection, and risk management. Staying protected in 2026 will demand more than traditional tools or reactive defenses. Businesses will need to embrace AI-powered automation, Zero-Trust architectures, and resilience-focused strategies that prepare them to detect, respond to, and recover from attacks faster than ever before. Let’s explore the top cybersecurity trends defining 2026, and how your organization can stay one step ahead in this rapidly evolving digital era.

In 2026, artificial intelligence will be at the center of cybersecurity innovation. AI-driven tools can process large volumes of data, identify patterns of malicious activity, and automate responses faster than human analysts ever could. This allows organizations to move from reactive defense to real-time protection, detecting anomalies such as unusual login attempts, unauthorized data transfers, or system misconfigurations. In what could be described as a banner year for technology advancements, 2025 showed how powerful—and dangerous—AI can be in the wrong hands. With bad actors automating complex attacks, using AI tools to engage in social engineering campaigns and manipulating the AI agent to expose sensitive information, it’s no surprise that the year was a game of... And while the global average of the cost of a data breach fell 9% to USD 4.44 million, the average cost in the US hit a record high of USD 10.22 million.

The cybersecurity threats didn’t end with automated chatbots spamming inboxes and tricking AI agents. This year, we saw what could happen when an organization is caught unprepared to deal with the consequences of integrating new tools like AI agents into their workflow: 13% of companies reported an AI-related... Last year’s cybersecurity predictions touched on AI’s increasingly important presence in the cybersecurity preparedness plan. This year, IBM’s predictions for 2026 center on how the integration of autonomous AI into enterprise environments can be both a boon and a burden, depending on whether the proper security measures are implemented—or... The agentic shift is no longer theoretical; it’s underway. Autonomous AI agents are reshaping enterprise risk, and legacy security models will crack under the pressure.

To stay resilient, organizations must drive a new era of integrated governance and security, built to monitor, validate and control AI behavior at machine speed. This transformation requires embedding security into the very fabric of AI development and governance—ensuring agents operate within ethical and operational boundaries from day one. Anything less risks fragmentation, blind spots and enterprise-wide exposure. AI is accelerating innovation—but also exposing enterprises to unprecedented risks of intellectual property (IP) loss. In 2026, we’ll see major security incidents where sensitive IP is compromised through shadow AI systems: unapproved tools deployed by employees without oversight. These systems often operate across multiple environments, making it easy for one unmonitored model to trigger widespread exposure.

This mirrors the rise of shadow IT a decade ago, but with far higher stakes—AI tools now handle proprietary algorithms, confidential data and strategic decision-making. Closing the gap will require security teams to move at the speed of innovation, delivering approved AI tools and governance frameworks that meet employee needs without sacrificing control. 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

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7 Predictions For Cybersecurity And Resilience In 2026

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