With cybersecurity, the only constant is change. The speed of that change is accelerating exponentially. The security perimeter, once defined by a firewall, has dissolved into a complex lattice of cloud environments, hybrid workforces, and rapidly integrated technologies like Operational Technology (OT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
This year, we've witnessed the commoditization of sophisticated attack techniques, the relentless pressure of supply chain vulnerabilities, and a clear shift in adversary focus from data theft to systemic disruption. For practitioners and enterprise leaders, keeping pace is no longer enough; anticipating the next wave of threats and regulatory demands is essential to building a resilient security posture, not just a reactive one.
As the calendar turns, it's critical to cut through the noise and identify the strategic shifts that will define the battleground for the next 12 months. To help you navigate this period of heightened uncertainty, we have assembled commentary from leading subject matter experts (SMEs)—from frontline security practitioners at major enterprises to researchers and solution architects from top vendor firms.
This collective intelligence moves beyond generalized fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) to offer targeted insights on everything from the evolution of phishing campaigns powered by Large Language Models to the strategic pivot toward "Secure by Design" mandates and the new complexities of securing AI systems across the development lifecycle.
What follows is an indispensable guide to the challenges and opportunities ahead. Each prediction has been curated to inform your budget planning, refine your defensive strategies, and ensure your team is focused on the highest-impact threats.
Whether you're tasked with defending critical infrastructure or securing the digital identity of every employee, this list provides the forward-looking perspective you need to transform foresight into a competitive advantage and a resilient security program.
Esmond Kane, CISO, Advarra:
Esmond bulleted out his predictions for the New Year:
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"AI threats and defenses will continue to evolve. Scammers to adopt deepfakes at scale. Granny is going to get a FaceTime from her grandkids, or is she?
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Along with tariffs and trade wars, attacks on supply chains will remain a critical threat vector.
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New regulations loom, an update to HIPAA in particular. The impact from defunding CISA will start to realize.
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Crypto cert management will become a greater headache to respond to the decryption threat that quantum poses.
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Attacks on executives will continue to evolve with violence-as-a-service now part of the extortion cycle.
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While we wait for the AI we built to defend from threats to realize humans are part of that threat, last year's Iron Man will become next year's Dr. Doom."
Kip Boyle, vCISO, Cyber Risk Opportunities LLC:
"In 2026, the number one source of data leakage will not be ransomware exfiltration, but 'Shadow AI' integration. We are going to see massive breaches caused by well-intentioned employees connecting proprietary databases to 'helpful' AI agents that have no security boundaries. The perimeter isn't just gone; it's been invited inside by your own staff to help them write code and summarize meetings."
Brian McGowan, VP, Global Security & Privacy, SharkNinja:
"AI-based attacks will significantly shift the risk profile of many companies as the 'entry barrier' to deliver attacks becomes substantially lower."
Hemanth Tadepalli, Sr. Cybersecurity and Compliance SME, May Mobility:
Hemanth also has a bulleted list of predictions:
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"AI security becomes a first-class priority. Organizations will move beyond traditional controls and adopt tooling focused specifically on securing AI/LLM pipelines, model integrity, and prompt-based vulnerabilities.
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"SOCs shift toward autonomous detection and response. Human-in-the-loop remains essential, but AI-assisted triage, automated playbooks, and predictive threat hunting significantly cut alert fatigue and response time.
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AI governance and GRC frameworks become mandatory, not optional. Companies will be expected to operationalize AI governance within risk programs—tracking model lineage, enforcing policy-based usage controls, and aligning with emerging NIST/ISO AI standards as part of compliance audits."
Maggie Amato, AI & Cybersecurity Leader:
"In 2026, the primary metric for cybersecurity resilience won't be speed of detection, but the depth of human trust. As we integrate autonomous AI agents into our defenses, we will see a distinct shift in leadership dynamics: moving away from command-and-control toward cultures defined by psychological safety and ethical stewardship. In an era where AI can fake identity, authentic human relationships will become our most unhackable asset."
Danny Manimbo, Principal | ISO Practice Director | AI Assessment Leader, Schellman
"As we move into 2026, AI governance and compliance will no longer be optional. New regulations in the U.S. and abroad, combined with growing customer and market expectations, are making structured oversight a fundamental requirement. Standards like ISO 42001 are positioned to become the backbone of organizational AI governance programs, but these pressures are also driving demand for deeper, technical-first evaluations of AI systems. As increasingly agentic technologies introduce new and less predictable risk pathways, emerging standards such as AIUC-1 will be essential for providing the empirical assurance needed to demonstrate reliability, safety, and readiness in a rapidly evolving AI landscape."
Krista Arndt, Associate CISO, St. Luke's University Health Network:
"Autonomous vendor integrations could result in 'Ghost Access.' Third-party SaaS now offers auto-generated API integrations or 'one-click AI agents.' These integrations often create service accounts the enterprise never sees—and if you don't know it's there, it never gets removed. This becomes ghost access, invisible in IGA/IDM, but fully authorized in your environment.
Behavioral MFA manipulation. Behavioral MFA (keystroke, micro-movements, navigation patterns) can be trained against using AI. Attackers use AI to learn your typing style, replicate your browsing rhythm, mimic your device-handling patterns, etc. This turns behavioral MFA into a spoofable factor."
Shikhar Shrestha, CEO and Co-Founder at Ambient.ai:
"AI is revolutionizing every industry and sector, and its impact on physical security is significant. 2026 will be the year that reasoning AI transforms traditional security infrastructure, ushering in an era of incident prevention versus incident response. The breakthrough of 2025 was the arrival of reasoning Vision-Language Models (VLMs)—models that don't just detect objects but understand behaviors, context, and intent. In 2026, these models will become the proven pre-requisite for effective enterprise security. Organizations that adopt this technology will see false positives fall sharply, response times accelerate, and investigations move from days to minutes. Cameras will no longer be passive sensors; they will act as active perception systems capable of highlighting the most important events in real time."
Douglas Murray, Chief Executive Officer at Auvik:
"The assumption that traditional perimeters and signature-based controls are adequate will continue to break down. AI-related attacks and misuse are the next forefront of IT challenges and security breaches. In 2026, organizations will need to shift from static defenses to posture-aware, behavior-based detection and continuous validation of AI-enabled services."
Morey Haber, Chief Security Advisor at BeyondTrust:
"Cybersecurity has always been a forward-looking discipline. By anticipating where technology, threat actors, and regulation are heading, we can better protect our customers and help the industry prepare for what's next. Looking ahead allows us to adapt faster and turn insight into proactive security action. The future of cybersecurity isn't just about defending data, it's about anticipating how digital and physical worlds will continue to collide. The organizations that will thrive are those that treat identity as the new perimeter and innovation as their strongest defense."
Dipto Chakravarty, Chief Product Officer at Black Duck:
"The traditional approach to vulnerability management and security testing will certainly be disrupted, primarily driven by the increasing adoption of AI in cybersecurity. The old software world is gone, giving way to a new set of truths defined by AI. AI will significantly alter how organizations identify and mitigate vulnerabilities, becoming both a tool for attackers and defenders. Threat actors will leverage AI to automate and scale attacks, while defenders will use AI to enhance detection and response capabilities."
Dave Gerry, Chief Executive Officer at Bugcrowd:
"Despite rumors of its demise, human oversight will remain critical in the year to come. The rise of AI-driven hallucinations, deepfakes, and lifelike synthetic media will make it harder for non-technical users to discern reality from AI-generated content. Organizations will need to foster a culture of human validation and critical thinking, ensuring that teams understand AI's capabilities and limitations."
Liz Nguyen, CTO of Intrado:
"21st Century cyber resilience will become standard as threats to public safety infrastructure intensify. The cybersecurity posture of public safety organizations and infrastructure will undergo a fundamental transformation in 2026 as sophisticated threats increasingly target connected emergency response networks and systems. The shift from isolated legacy systems to internet-connected NG9-1-1 infrastructure has created new vulnerabilities that require comprehensive defense strategies.
Security precautions and capabilities that were once considered as merely 'nice to have' have become a critical requirement as public safety networks face more frequent and advanced attacks from geopolitical adversaries and criminal organizations. A successful cyberattack on these systems doesn't just compromise data; it directly threatens public safety and community protection capabilities.
The most forward-thinking public safety organizations are treating cyber resilience as core operational competency, rapidly adopting zero-trust security models, hybrid cloud architectures, and continuous monitoring systems as standard practices. In 2026, agencies that fail to prioritize cybersecurity enhancements will find themselves increasingly vulnerable to disruptions in their ability to protect the communities they serve. Building cyber resilience isn't just about preventing attacks, it's about ensuring that critical public safety services remain always-on regardless of the threat environment."
Agnidipta Sarkar, Chief Evangelist at ColorTokens:
"Zero Trust adoption will continue to expand in the year ahead, however, many organizations will struggle with implementation beyond identity and access. While multifactor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on are now standard, extending Zero Trust principles to workloads, data, and devices requires significant architectural change. The forward looking reality is that Zero Trust will remain a journey rather than a destination, with most enterprises operating in hybrid states for years to come."
Emma Werth, VP, Underwriting & Reinsurance at Cowbell:
"2026 will be the year in which straightforward risks will be completely automated through agentic AI systems that can digest applications, extract key information about controls and loss history, and generate quotes without any human intervention. However, the more complex risks will continue to require human underwriters who can navigate the 'art' of underwriting—those gray areas that require behavioral understanding and relationship management.
Insurance remains fundamentally a relationship business. While AI excels at the science of underwriting, it struggles with the nuanced decision-making that experienced underwriters bring to complex risks. The future isn't about replacing underwriters, it's about empowering them with better tools."
John DiLullo, CEO at Deepwatch:
"While others may disagree, I believe that 2026 will be the year where hybrid work becomes a security hazard. Hybrid work, once seen as a productivity booster, will lose its halo as security, not convenience, drives a return to the office. The cost of remote breaches and unmanaged devices will force CEOs and boards to rethink flexibility. My advice: start planning for a security-first workplace strategy today. Lock down endpoints, enforce managed devices, and prepare for cultural pushback because this shift will come from the top."
Derek Manky, Chief Security Strategist & Global VP of Threat Intelligence at Fortinet:
"GenAI will become more central to post-compromise operations. Once attackers gain access to large datasets—through infiltration or by purchasing access on the dark web—AI tools will analyze and correlate massive volumes of data in minutes, pinpointing the most valuable assets for extortion or resale. These capabilities will enable adversaries to identify critical data, prioritize victims, and generate tailored extortion messages at scale. By automating these steps, attackers can quickly transform stolen data into actionable intelligence, increasing efficiency and profitability.
For defenders, this trend underscores the importance of integrating SecOps capabilities, such as NDR, EDR, and CTEM, to detect unusual data movement and flag early signs of AI-assisted extortion before damage escalates."
Ellen Boehm, SVP, IoT & AI Identity Innovation, Keyfactor:
"You can’t secure what you can’t identify – especially AI. As we move into 2026, AI will no longer just assist; it will act. Agentic systems will make decisions, initiate transactions, and connect directly to sensitive data and infrastructure. Each of these AI agents now represents a new kind of identity that must be authenticated, managed, and trusted. Without verifiable digital identity, we lose visibility into who or what is acting within our systems."
Boehm added, "Right now, many organizations are eager to show value from agentic AI projects, and in the process, they are cutting dangerous corners on security—the same way they did with the emergence of IoT devices. Giving unchecked access to an AI system is like handing over the keys to your network without knowing who’s driving or where they’re going. Yet security, as always, tends to be an afterthought, and that’s exactly what will be exploited."
She continued, "In 2026, enterprises will realize that securing AI isn’t just about protecting data; it’s about establishing trust in the machines themselves. As agentic AI proliferates, every AI agent must have its own cryptographic identity, enforced through certificates and mutual TLS. The organizations that lead in 2026 will be those that build identity into the DNA of AI, creating systems that are not only intelligent, but inherently trustworthy.”
Bryan Cunningham, President at Liberty Defense:
"AI compute needs will continue to drive massive increases in giant data centers, and these will be priority targets for our adversaries. Cybersecurity will have to be of the highest order at such facilities, however, insider threats will also be significant. Owners and operators of these facilities must also invest in physical security, including employee, vendor, and visitor screening for traditional and emerging weapons threats (e.g., 3D-printed firearms) and careful consideration of location to prevent foreign adversaries from being able to easily mount surveillance efforts, including via drones and other robotic surveillance capabilities."
Dan Zaniewski, CTO at Auvik:
"AI becomes an operational foundation for MSPs. AI will shift from isolated experiments to an embedded operational layer that continuously assists NOC and service desk teams. To benefit, IT teams should be thinking about instrumenting telemetry, establishing fast feedback loops, and embedding AI-aware observability so AI becomes an operational advantage rather than an experiment.
The autonomy gap grows unless MSPs strengthen data discipline. Despite the hype around self-driving networks, most MSPs won't achieve meaningful autonomy without standardized data, consistent telemetry, and human-guided automation. Closing the gap will require better data hygiene, human-in-the-loop workflows that keep operators in control, and staged automation that accelerates decisions without removing humans from critical paths."
Negin Aminian, Sr. Manager of Cybersecurity Strategy at Menlo Security:
"In 2026, organizations will continue to consider and pursue zero trust, and yes, we absolutely will get there, but only by changing the way we try to implement it. Especially now, as the browser has become central to work, where our employees, partners, and contractors are accessing our business-critical applications and using AI. The key is to pivot from those painful, agent-heavy ZTNA models and focus on where the risk actually lives: the browser. This approach can make implementing zero trust much less resource-intensive, but at the same time, much more effective for our modern workforce."
Chris Jones, CTO at Nightwing:
"The rapid expansion of advanced analytics, generative AI, and hyperscale capacity is unfolding even as the federal government seeks to control spending via budget and staff reductions. For national security leaders, the challenge is to deliver greater mission impact at scale, even as cyber threats grow more complex and resources tighten. Meeting that mandate requires tremendous infrastructure, process, and cultural maturation to adapt and evolve at speed.
The rise of stealthy 'Living-off-the-Land' attacks in 2025 showed how adversaries can weaponize legitimate system functions, a wake-up call that demands more adaptive, behavior-based defenses. And as AI becomes central to mission execution, leaders must govern its use as carefully as they deploy it—ensuring the tools that drive efficiency do not become new vectors of risk.
In 2026, success will depend on how effectively organizations harness technology to stay ahead. Mature agentic AI frameworks will be key, integrating multi-sensor intelligence, orchestrating workflows, and empowering human operators to execute MDR and SOC functions at scale. By year's end, these systems will not just offer an advantage; they will define mission success.”
Matt Hartman, Chief Strategy Officer at Merlin Group:
"There's no question that cryptanalytically relevant quantum computers pose a serious threat to global data security. While this technology remains on the horizon, it is imperative that organizations begin preparing now. Nation-state adversaries, most notably the People's Republic of China, have already begun operating under a 'harvest now, decrypt later' mindset. Simply put, the specific timeline for quantum is immaterial; organizations' sensitive data is at risk today. This is not only a data security imperative; it is a national and economic security imperative that could shape the balance of global power in the digital age.
As artificial intelligence and automation accelerate innovation, they also amplify the speed and scale of cyber threats, making secure and resilient cryptographic systems essential. While it may feel overwhelming to security teams who are knee-deep addressing 'today's problems,' there are steps that must be taken today. Organizations should begin by conducting an automated inventory and discovery scan to gain full visibility into their cryptographic landscape, ensuring awareness of privileged assets, addressing current weaknesses, and guiding a well-informed transition to PQC. Transitioning to PQC isn't a technical luxury, it's an urgent business, economic, and national security priority. Organizations who act early will lead in the era of quantum resilience, while those who delay may find themselves attempting to defend the undefendable."
Diana Kelley, CISO at Noma Security:
"In 2026, the long-standing belief that humans can reliably serve as the 'final safety check' for AI will be stress tested. Autonomous agents will make thousands of decisions every minute, far beyond the capacity of manual review. To address this challenge, security teams will need to build stronger guardrails directly into agentic systems, such as deterministic controls and policy enforcement points that prevent unsafe actions, adaptive trust mechanisms that adjust autonomy based on risk, and verifiable logs that prove who, or what, made each decision."
Russ Ernst, CTO at Blancco:
"In 2026, cyber defenses will be transformed by AI-driven IT asset. Management AI's inherent ability to see patterns in large data sets improves security threat detection and identifies vulnerabilities in real time. This helps organizations meet increasingly complex compliance requirements, and will minimize costly breaches, data leaks, and regulatory penalties. By embedding AI into IT asset management, enterprises can detect and isolate rogue or untracked devices before they become attack vectors while securing configuration baselines—including security settings, permissions, and configurations for systems and components. Leveraging AI for better organization-wide security protections will lighten the load on cybersecurity teams already stretched thin, improve data security, and assist with increasingly complex data privacy laws and regulation compliance."
Biren Patel, Senior Cyber Defender at Ontinue:
"Ransomware timelines will shrink, putting massive pressure on response teams. Most ransomware families can encrypt a system within about 15 minutes. In 2026, that window will shrink even further as attackers optimize their payloads. Organizations relying on manual investigation will not be able to keep up. Automated enrichment, agentic AI support, and rapid decision-making will become mandatory to stop ransomware before it spreads."
Chris Radkowski, GRC Expert at Pathlock:
"In 2026, regulatory shifts will dominate the compliance and security agenda. The EU AI Act's full release in August will require organizations to classify systems by risk, complete conformity assessments, and maintain documentation that reshapes how AI is deployed. At the same time, state level AI bills in Colorado, California, and New York are advancing, creating a fragmented U.S. landscape that demands careful navigation.
Beyond AI, data localization and digital sovereignty mandates are accelerating worldwide, with China's PIPL enforcement maturing, India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act gaining traction, and governments across APAC, LATAM, and Africa tightening rules on where data resides and how it moves. Supply chain and third-party risk transparency also becomes nonnegotiable, driven by Europe's DORA, the SEC's cybersecurity disclosure rules, and expanding critical infrastructure mandates globally. The era of trust without verification for vendors is ending, and continuous visibility into resilience is now expected."
Nick Heddy, President and Chief Commerce Officer at Pax8:
"2026 will be the year AI becomes the great equalizer. Small businesses will finally have access to capabilities that were once exclusive to Fortune 500 companies. But there's a catch: democratized AI means democratized risk. Every business that gains enterprise-level intelligence also inherits enterprise-level security challenges. The winners will be those who work with technology partners that can orchestrate both AI implementation and security as a unified strategy, seeing the complete picture from day one."
Rick Doten, Former VP, Information Security, Centene Corporation:
"I agree with Nick Heddy: AI will democratize midsized companies to implement capabilities reserved for more well-funded and resourced larger organizations. How that will look will be:
- Organizations move away from MSSPs and bring security operations back inside.
- Organizations will finally get on top of vulnerability management by leveraging context-aware Agentic AI remediation platforms.
- Organizations will be able to accomplish real threat hunting and detection engineering now that they have basic security operations covered with AI.
- Organizations will acknowledge and address vibe coding revolution. And more organizations will start performing internal development with AI-assisted coding tools, which will make them need an application security process that they didn’t have before.
- We will see more companies address HR issues of over-employment (person working at more than one organization) and fraudulent employee outsourcing (employee paying someone else to do their job)."
April Lenhard, Principal Product Manager at Qualys:
"2026 will be the year that attack-path modeling grows up, and the year CTEM gets sidelined by the Risk Operations Center (ROC). Attack paths will transition from static graphs to digital cyber ranges, powering red-teaming and real-time 'what-if' or 'now-what' simulations. Wargaming has ignored the cyber element for a long time, so cybersecurity will instead start incorporating wargame elements at a bigger scale. Secondly, we will start seeing a wider industry shift from counting assets to risk-prioritized operations, where informed triage eliminates noise, saves resources, and focuses teams on what actually matters when it matters."
Jason Soroko, Senior Fellow at Sectigo:
"2026 will mark a milestone no one wants: the first publicly acknowledged Fortune 500 material breach caused by prompt injection. Companies will deploy LLM-integrated systems without guardrails, and adversaries will discover how to coerce those models into executing harmful internal commands or leaking sensitive data. The industry is still treating prompt injection like a clever party trick rather than a security class. It's not. Even without 'attacking the model,' attackers will weaponize its instructions. And organizations still aren't ready. Model-signing and treating small models like firmware will emerge as essential controls."
Michael Clark, Senior Director of Threat Research at Sysdig:
"In 2026, compute power will become the new cryptocurrency. As AI models grow hungrier for processing resources, threat actors—especially those facing sanctions or limited access to chips—will begin hijacking infrastructure to train their own large language models (LLMs) and run autonomous AI agents. The Sysdig Threat Research Team first observed LLMjacking in 2024, with attackers using stolen credentials to gain access to a victim's LLMs. This trend will transform from attackers compromising access for usage to stealing compute power. Enterprises should prepare to model GPU utilization and model training activity with the same vigilance they once held when watching network traffic for cryptojacking."
Alex Quilici, CEO at YouMail:
"Every text, call, or voicemail will deserve a second look. In 2026, scam calls will sound more real than ever. Fraudsters are now using cloned voices that match your bank's virtual assistant or even your favorite delivery service's tone. You'll get a call from what sounds like your bank, with the right voice, the right number, and a perfect script. Only it isn't them. Scammers will use these 'audio twins' to trick people into confirming account info or sending money. We'll start seeing these 'brand-clone scams' show up everywhere, from credit cards to delivery updates. The only defense is verification outside the call itself. If your gut says something's off, hang up and call the official number."
Tim Roddy, VP of Product Marketing at Zimperium:
"AI agents will begin to appear as assistants pulling info from documentation, as assistants to flag anomalies requiring investigation, and as Triage agents to analyze incidents and track the attack chain and implement response that is usually done by SOC personnel, often at the first level. This will speed up incident response times and resolution from days to hours and perhaps minutes. It will also reduce the need for entry level 1 analysts, which will have employment impact and limit the pipeline to advanced level 3 analysts, which will be a long-term challenge for the security industry."
