12 Cyber Security Trends for 2026, Backed by the Latest Data

Last updated: September 2026. Written by Josh Hutcheson, OnlineCourseing editor. Figures re-checked at the source (Verizon DBIR 2026, FBI IC3 2025, WEF Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026, Gartner, NIST, IBM) on 22 September 2026. See our review methodology.

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How we built this list

Every trend below is backed by at least one primary source published in the last year: Verizon’s 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report, the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026, Gartner’s top cybersecurity trends for 2026, IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 and NIST. For each trend we give the evidence and what it means in practice. For a deeper look at the AI side specifically, see our guide to AI in cybersecurity.

The 12 cybersecurity trends for 2026

1. AI arms both attackers and defenders

In the World Economic Forum’s 2026 survey, 94% of respondents said AI will be the most significant driver of change in cybersecurity, and 87% named AI-related vulnerabilities as the fastest-growing cyber risk of 2025. The share of organizations assessing the security of their AI tools nearly doubled, from 37% to 64% (World Economic Forum). Verizon counts 15 different attack techniques now being boosted by generative AI, from spotting security gaps to writing malware (Verizon), and IBM found AI-driven attacks rose 56% (IBM).

The FBI received more than 22,000 complaints involving AI in 2025, with adjusted losses above $893 million, including cloned voices and AI-written emails used in business email compromise (FBI IC3).

2. Attackers exploit systems more than they trick people

Software vulnerabilities are now the top way attackers get in: 31% of breaches start by exploiting a vulnerability, ahead of stolen passwords (Verizon). Internet-facing systems are attractive targets because a single unpatched flaw in a widely used product can expose many organizations at once.

What to do: keep an accurate inventory of internet-facing systems and patch known exploited vulnerabilities first, rather than working through every alert in order of arrival.

3. Ransomware stays common, but fewer victims pay

Ransomware is involved in 48% of breaches in Verizon’s 2026 report, yet ransom amounts are falling and businesses are increasingly choosing not to pay (Verizon). The FBI received 3,611 ransomware complaints in 2025, though its figures cover only incidents victims choose to report (FBI IC3). Refusing to pay is only realistic with tested, offline backups and a practised recovery plan.

4. Cyber-enabled fraud becomes the top concern

Fraud is where cybercrime now touches the most people. In the WEF survey, 73% of respondents said they or someone in their network had been affected by cyber-enabled fraud during 2025, and CEOs now rank it as their top cyber concern, while security chiefs still worry most about ransomware and supply chains (World Economic Forum).

The FBI numbers show the scale. Reported losses reached $20.877 billion in 2025, up 26% on the year before, from 1,008,597 complaints. Investment fraud caused the largest losses at $8.65 billion, including $7.2 billion from cryptocurrency investment scams, followed by business email compromise at $3.05 billion and tech-support scams at $2.13 billion. People aged 60 and over reported $7.7 billion in losses (FBI IC3).

5. Phishing moves to phones

As people get better at spotting phishing emails, attackers are moving to text messages, messaging apps and phone calls. Verizon reports 40% higher click rates on mobile, which makes phones the new favorite target (Verizon). Verizon notes that people are often more likely to fall for a fake text or scam call than for a traditional phishing email, and small screens make sender details and links harder to check.

6. AI agents need security oversight

Gartner’s first cybersecurity trend for 2026 is agentic AI. Employees and developers are adopting AI agents quickly, often through no-code tools and “vibe coding”, creating unmanaged agents, insecure code and compliance risk. Gartner advises security leaders to find both sanctioned and unsanctioned agents, apply controls to each and write incident response playbooks for them (Gartner). The OWASP Top 10 for large language model applications ranks prompt injection as the number one risk (OWASP).

7. Shadow AI outpaces awareness training

Traditional security awareness programs are not keeping up with generative AI. In a Gartner survey of 175 employees, more than 57% used personal generative AI accounts for work and 33% admitted entering sensitive information into unapproved tools. Gartner recommends moving from general awareness training to behavior-focused programs with AI-specific tasks, backed by clear policies on approved tools (Gartner).

8. Identity extends to machines and AI agents

Identity is now the main battleground, and it is no longer only about people. Gartner notes that AI agents challenge traditional identity and access management, from how agents are registered and governed to how their credentials are automated and what they are authorized to do (Gartner). For human accounts, phishing-resistant sign-in such as passkeys and security keys is the recommended upgrade from passwords plus text-message codes.

9. Supply chain risk keeps rising

Among large companies, 65% say third-party and supply chain vulnerabilities are their greatest barrier to cyber resilience, up from 54% a year earlier (World Economic Forum). Software dependencies, managed service providers and cloud platforms mean one supplier’s breach can spread to thousands of customers.

10. Geopolitics shapes security strategy

Geopolitics is the top factor in cyber risk strategies: 64% of organizations account for geopolitically motivated attacks such as disruption of critical infrastructure or espionage, and 91% of the largest organizations have changed their cybersecurity strategies because of geopolitical volatility. Confidence is slipping, with 31% of respondents reporting low confidence in their country’s ability to respond to a major cyber incident, up from 26% (World Economic Forum).

11. The move to post-quantum encryption begins

Quantum computers powerful enough to break today’s public-key encryption do not exist yet, but the migration takes years. NIST finalized its first three post-quantum encryption standards, FIPS 203, 204 and 205, in August 2024, declared them ready for immediate use and urged administrators to start transitioning as soon as possible (NIST). Gartner predicts advances in quantum computing will make the asymmetric cryptography organizations rely on unsafe by 2030, and warns of “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks on data that must stay secret for years (Gartner).

12. AI-driven security operations and regulation reshape the work

AI-enabled security operations centers speed up alert triage and investigation but bring new costs, staffing pressure and upskilling demands; Gartner stresses keeping people in the loop (Gartner). At the same time, regulators increasingly hold boards and executives liable for cyber failures, and new rules such as the EU AI Act’s transparency obligations, applying since 2 August 2026, add to compliance work (European Commission).

Deepfakes and voice cloning: the fraud tools to watch

The FBI’s 2025 report describes how AI-generated content has made old scams more convincing. Chat generators produce official-sounding emails that imitate a chief executive, and voice cloning is used to request wire transfers. Businesses reported more than $30 million in losses to business email compromise involving AI in 2025, and victims of romance scams using AI-generated profiles and scripts lost over $19 million (FBI IC3). The FBI notes that AI-made content is becoming harder to detect and easier to produce.

The defense is procedural rather than technical. Agree in advance that no payment, bank-detail change or password reset is approved on the strength of a single email, call or video, and confirm through a separate, known channel.

Priorities differ by role and sector

The same trends look different depending on where you sit. The WEF found that chief executives now rank cyber-enabled fraud and AI vulnerabilities as their top concerns, while chief information security officers remain most worried about ransomware and supply chain resilience, a gap boards and security teams need to close when setting budgets (World Economic Forum). The public sector reports markedly lower confidence, with 23% of public-sector organizations saying their cyber resilience is insufficient, despite their role in protecting critical infrastructure.

Small organizations face the same threats with fewer people. For them, the checklist further down this page, plus managed services for email security and backups, usually does more than buying advanced tools.

How security teams should prioritize in 2026

1. Close the front door. Patch internet-facing systems quickly, prioritizing vulnerabilities known to be exploited, and remove services that do not need to be exposed.
2. Harden identity. Move administrators and high-risk users to phishing-resistant sign-in, review privileged access and extend identity governance to service accounts and AI agents.
3. Prepare to recover. Keep offline or immutable backups, rehearse a ransomware scenario and decide in advance how you would operate without paying.
4. Govern AI use. Inventory approved and unapproved AI tools and agents, set data rules and test AI applications against the OWASP Top 10 for large language models.
5. Manage suppliers. Identify the vendors whose failure would stop your business, and check their security commitments and incident notification terms.
6. Start a cryptography inventory. Record where encryption protects long-lived data, so post-quantum migration can be planned rather than rushed.

The 12 trends at a glance

What happened to the 2021 trends

An earlier version of this page listed ten trends for 2021. Most are still with us in a changed form:

A checklist for individuals and small businesses

Most of these trends reach small organizations and households as well as large companies. A short list of habits covers most of the risk:

• Update automatically. Turn on automatic updates for devices, browsers, routers and business software, since exploited vulnerabilities are now the top way in.
• Use passkeys or an authenticator app for email, banking and admin accounts, not text-message codes alone.
• Verify money and access requests by calling a known number, however convincing the email, voice or video looks.
• Treat texts with links as suspicious, especially delivery, bank and toll messages.
• Back up important data offline or to a separate account, and test restoring it.
• Set rules for AI tools: decide which ones staff may use and what data must never be pasted into them.
• Report fraud in the US to the FBI at ic3.gov, and contact your bank immediately if money has been sent.

Careers in cybersecurity

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a 2025 median wage of $129,180 for information security analysts and projects employment growth of 21% from 2025 to 2035, much faster than average (BLS). The trends above point to where demand is heading: cloud and identity security, vulnerability management, incident response and, increasingly, securing AI systems. Our guides to the best cybersecurity certifications and CompTIA Security+ training cover the usual first credentials.

Courses to keep your skills current

• Google – Cybersecurity Professional Certificate (Coursera). The beginner route: security fundamentals, networking, Linux, SQL, Python and incident response, designed for people with no prior experience.
• Johns Hopkins University – AI for Cybersecurity (Coursera). A three-course specialization on using machine learning for malware and network anomaly detection and on securing AI systems against adversarial attacks. Best if you already have security or programming basics.
• IBM – Generative AI for Cybersecurity Professionals (Coursera). A three-course specialization on applying generative AI tools and prompting to security work such as incident management, aimed at working security staff.

All three are included in Coursera Plus. Coursera removed its free audit option for most courses in 2025, so check the price or trial terms before enrolling.

See the Google Cybersecurity Certificate →

For hands-on skills, see our guides to ethical hacking courses, penetration testing tools and the web penetration testing checklist.

Frequently asked questions

What are the biggest cybersecurity trends in 2026?

The leading trends are AI used on both sides of attacks, attackers exploiting software vulnerabilities more often than stolen passwords, ransomware present in nearly half of breaches, cyber-enabled fraud becoming the top concern of CEOs, the need to secure AI agents and their identities, supply chain risk, and the start of the move to post-quantum encryption.

How much does cybercrime cost?

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded $20.877 billion in reported losses in 2025, up 26% on 2024, from more than one million complaints. IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 puts the global average cost of a single breach at a record USD 4.99 million.

Is ransomware still a major threat?

Yes. Verizon’s 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report finds ransomware involved in 48% of breaches. Ransom payments are shrinking and more victims refuse to pay, but recovery, downtime and data loss keep the cost high.

How is AI changing cybersecurity?

Attackers use generative AI to speed up reconnaissance, write malware and create convincing phishing and deepfakes; Verizon counts 15 attack techniques it now enhances. Defenders use AI to detect threats and triage alerts, and organizations must now secure their own AI tools and agents. In the World Economic Forum’s 2026 survey, 94% of respondents called AI the biggest driver of change in cybersecurity.

What is post-quantum cryptography?

Post-quantum cryptography is encryption designed to resist attacks from future quantum computers, which could break today’s public-key encryption. NIST finalized its first three post-quantum standards in August 2024 and urges organizations to start transitioning now, partly because attackers can steal encrypted data today and decrypt it later.

Is cybersecurity a good career in 2026?

Demand remains strong. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a 2025 median wage of $129,180 for information security analysts and projects 21% job growth from 2025 to 2035, much faster than average. AI security, cloud security and identity are among the fastest-developing specialisms.

The verdict

The cybersecurity story of 2026 is acceleration: AI makes attacks faster and more convincing, attackers go after unpatched systems at scale, and fraud reaches people who never think of themselves as targets. The encouraging part is that the most effective defenses are well known. Patch what faces the internet, protect identities with phishing-resistant sign-in, keep tested backups, verify unusual requests and put rules around AI. Organizations and people who do those basics well are far harder to hit, whatever the trend.

See Johns Hopkins AI for Cybersecurity →

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