Cyber security in 2026 is no longer about building higher walls and hoping attackers go elsewhere. The pace, scale and motivations behind modern attacks mean that every organisation, regardless of size or sector, is now operating in a permanently contested environment.
The question for the year ahead is not if something will happen, but how well prepared your business is to absorb disruption, recover quickly and continue operating without becoming the next headline.
That was the core message from CyberOne’s recent webinar, Build, Scale, Secure (& Harness AI): 2026 Cyber Security Roadmap. Drawing on frontline incident response, board-level advisory work, and real-world attack data, the session outlined what is changing and what organisations must do differently to stay in control.
Five forces are shaping cyber risk as we move deeper into 2026.
Artificial intelligence is no longer experimental. It is operational and it is being used aggressively by attackers and defenders alike. For threat actors, AI has removed much of the technical barrier that once limited scale. Attacks that previously took days can now unfold in minutes.
In one confirmed case discussed during the webinar, an AI-enabled attack moved from initial probing of external infrastructure to acting on objectives in just over two minutes. That is the new reality defenders are facing.
For security teams, AI is finally starting to deliver practical value. Noise reduction, faster triage and machine-speed analysis are becoming achievable. The advantage does not come from replacing people, but from enabling human decision-making to happen far faster than before.
The uncomfortable truth is this: if attackers can act in minutes, then detection and response strategies designed around hours are already obsolete.
"Anecdotally, the quickest AI-enabled attack we’ve seen was two minutes and seven seconds. To go from the initial scoping, the initial probing of a customer’s external infrastructure to actually acting on objectives was only two minutes. Not so long ago, you’d probably be looking at two days for an attack path."
-Philip Ridley, Cyber Risk Management Director
Cyber attacks are increasingly shaped by global events. Hacktivism rose sharply last year, with a 51 percent increase driven by political and ideological motivations. Organisations do not need to be political actors themselves to be caught in the crossfire. Being part of a supply chain, operating in a sensitive sector or publicly aligning with a partner can be enough.
Operational technology and industrial control systems remain prime targets, particularly where they are exposed or poorly segmented. These attacks are not always about financial gain. They are about disruption and visibility.
Understanding how global events change your threat profile is no longer optional. Threat intelligence has become a strategic input, not a technical extra.
With high-profile breaches dominating the news cycle, there is a growing risk that organisations become desensitised. “Everyone gets hit eventually” is a narrative that quietly undermines security investment and preparedness.
In 2025 alone, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre tracked more than 200 nationally significant cyber attacks. These were not edge cases. They targeted critical infrastructure, major financial institutions and organisations central to everyday life.
Normalisation breeds complacency. Complacency creates gaps. Those gaps are exactly where attackers operate.
General-purpose quantum computing is still on the horizon, but the implications for encryption are already being felt. Attackers are harvesting encrypted data today with the expectation that it can be decrypted in the future once quantum capabilities mature.
For organisations holding data that must remain confidential for decades rather than years, this is a strategic issue. Encryption choices made today may define exposure tomorrow.
Post-quantum cryptography is no longer theoretical. Guidance is emerging and major vendors are already integrating quantum-resistant algorithms into their platforms. The time to understand where long-term encryption risk exists is now, not when it becomes urgent.
Governments are no longer treating cyber security as a best practice exercise. It is becoming a legal obligation, with a strong focus on supply chain accountability.
The UK’s Cyber Security and Resilience Bill expands expectations around risk management, incident reporting and third-party oversight. The EU AI Act introduces risk-based controls for AI systems. Updates to NIS and the Cyber Security Act reinforce the message that organisations are accountable not only for their own security posture, but for the ecosystem they operate within.
Even if your organisation is not directly in scope, your customers may be. And when they are, requirements flow downstream.
Attackers have learned that compromising one well-connected supplier is often easier and more effective than attacking a hardened primary target directly. Despite this, most organisations still lack visibility into how exposed their supply chain really is.
“Supply chain absolutely is seen as a key way into organisations. A lot of threat actors are actively looking for insider support within supply chains."
-Philip Ridley, Cyber Risk Mangement Director
According to government data referenced in the webinar, 86 percent of businesses have not reviewed their immediate supply chain cyber risk. That blind spot is actively exploited.
One example shared during the session illustrated this clearly. A company announced a new partnership with a globally recognised brand. Within half an hour of the press release going live, its infrastructure was being actively probed for weaknesses. Visibility alone was enough to attract attention.
Supply chain security starts by understanding what truly matters to the business. The data, systems and processes that, if lost or disrupted, would threaten survival. From there, suppliers must be mapped to impact, not convenience. Not all suppliers carry the same risk and they should not be treated as if they do.
Effective supply chain management combines technical controls, contractual rights and ongoing assurance. It is not a one-off assessment. It is a continuous discipline.
Traditional cyber security focused on keeping attackers out. Modern cyber security assumes that some level of compromise is inevitable and designs systems to withstand it.
Resilience shifts the conversation from “how do we stop everything” to “how do we survive anything”.
A resilient organisation understands the likelihood of attack, the impact of disruption and the speed at which it can recover. It designs infrastructure so that systems can be rebuilt quickly, data can be restored confidently and access can be constrained before damage spreads.
This is not just a technical exercise. It requires leadership ownership. Boards set the tone for how seriously resilience is taken and whether it is embedded into how the business operates or treated as an IT concern.
Practices such as infrastructure as code, immutable backups, strong segmentation, least privilege access and continuous monitoring are no longer advanced concepts. They are the foundation of operational survival.
Some organisations are going further, deliberately introducing failure through chaos engineering to validate their assumptions. Pulling the plug in a controlled way is often the fastest route to understanding how real your resilience actually is.
Cyber security strategies fail when they sit in isolation. In 2026, security must align directly to business objectives, risk appetite and regulatory reality.
Boards are increasingly expected to own cyber governance. That means asking the right questions, demanding meaningful metrics and understanding exposure in financial and operational terms, not just technical ones.
Effective strategies focus on a small number of core pillars: risk management, people, incident readiness, assurance and alignment with business goals. They prioritise identity, resilience, supply chain visibility and controlled adoption of AI.
Most importantly, they produce clarity. What needs to happen now. What comes next. What can wait.
The organisations that will navigate 2026 successfully will not be the ones chasing every new threat headline. They will be the ones that understand their risk, design for disruption and can explain, with confidence, how they will respond when things go wrong.
Cyber security has become a business capability. The roadmap is no longer optional.
Watch our on-demand webinar Build, Scale, Secure (& Harness AI): 2026 Cyber Security Roadmap to see how leading organisations are redesigning security for resilience in 2026.