The transition into 2026 marks a historic pivot where we have moved beyond the era of "reactive defence" into a period defined by predictive, autonomous, and deeply integrated resilience. This shift is driven by a stark economic reality: Gartner projects that worldwide information security spending will hit $240 billion in 2026, a 12.5% increase from 2025.
Critically, this spend is being channelled into a "SaaS-first" world. As organisations move towards outcome-based SaaS models and agentic workflows, the boundary between software and the security layer has dissolved. With global IT spending set to exceed $6 trillion for the first time in 2026 (Gartner, 2025), the priority is no longer just protecting data, but securing the automated ecosystem that runs the modern business.
The "2026 Cyber-threat Predictions" highlight a world where adversaries operate as industrial enterprises, prioritising throughput and monetisation over mere innovation. We are seeing a 21% surge in global cyberattacks year-on-year, and ransomware is on track to increase by 40% by the end of 2026. This explosion in volume is inextricably linked to the SaaS explosion. Today, a single organisation uses an average of 130 different SaaS applications, and 75% of organisations report experiencing a SaaS security incident in the past 12 months—a 33% spike since 2024. As highlighted in our recent look at SaaS trends, the shift towards deeply interconnected, multi-tenant cloud architectures has created a "monoculture" risk. An attacker no longer needs to breach your perimeter; they only need to compromise one minor connected vendor to access a thousand customer environments.
Below are the Top 10 Predictions for how organisations will navigate this high-velocity environment in 2026.
1. The Rise of Agentic Warfare
Generative AI has matured into Agentic AI, where attackers deploy autonomous agents capable of independent reasoning. For example, recent state-sponsored campaigns used agents to perform 80–90% of reconnaissance and infiltration tasks without human intervention. Defensive systems must now evolve into Multi-agent Systems, where specialised agents independently analyse risk in milliseconds to counter these high-speed attacks.
2. Personalised Partner Enablement & PRM Integration
As security stacks grow, the 'one-size-fits-all' model is outdated. At major 2026 cybersecurity events, we are seeing a shift where vendors use Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platforms to turn resellers into strategic consultants. These events are designed to coordinate global responses to regional data sovereignty laws.
For example, a security vendor might use PRM automation to deliver role-specific training and "vCISO-in-a-box" playbooks directly to their partners based on real-time client data. This allows even small resellers to offer sophisticated compliance and risk-mapping services. Additionally, by 2027, 35% of countries will be locked into region-specific AI platforms, making PRM tools essential for vendors to coordinate with local partners who manage strict data sovereignty requirements.
3. Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Migration
The "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" threat has transitioned from a theoretical risk to a critical budget line item. NIST officially finalised the first Post-Quantum Cryptography standards (FIPS 203, 204, and 205) in late 2024, providing a clear path for migration. Large-scale organisations, particularly in finance and government, are now actively migrating "long-life" data to these standards to avoid future obsolescence. This involves a fundamental shift towards crypto-agility, where systems are designed to swap out encryption algorithms as quantum capabilities evolve.
4. The Synthetic Identity Crisis
Deepfakes are a multi-billion pound fraud category. North America saw deepfake incidents surge by 1,740% recently, with losses in Q1 2025 alone exceeding $200 million. Companies are moving towards Liveness 2.0, utilising randomised, multimodal challenge-responses—such as asking a user to perform an unpredictable physical gesture—that current synthetic media cannot yet reliably mimic.
5. Continuous Exposure Management (CEM)
The annual penetration test is a legacy practice. In 2026, the focus is on Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). Gartner predicts that organisations prioritising CTEM will be three times less likely to suffer a breach. These platforms focus on the 1% of vulnerabilities that are actually exploitable in the wild.
6. Cyber-Physical Convergence at the Edge
The integration of IT and Operational Technology (OT) makes every sensor a potential entry point. The rise of "physical AI" means intelligence is now embodied in robots across industrial plants (Deloitte, 2026). Security is being pushed to the "Edge", applying Zero Trust to physical hardware—such as an autonomous warehouse robot—as rigorously as to cloud databases.
7. Resilience as the Prime Metric
Preventing 100% of attacks is recognised as an unattainable goal. The primary KPI has shifted from "attacks blocked" to Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR). Success is measured by "elasticity"—the system's ability to operate in a diminished state during an incident and self-repair without total service interruption.
8. Human-Centric Security Design
Generic training videos have yielded poor results. Organisations are moving towards Personalised Security Behaviour Management, delivering "just-in-time" coaching. For example, if an employee is targeted by a phishing attempt, they receive an immediate, role-specific micro-learning module triggered the moment they interact with a suspicious link.
9. Automated Governance and Sovereignty
Managing compliance manually is impossible due to fragmented global laws like the EU AI Act. New Automated Governance systems ensure AI models remain compliant without human intervention. This includes Geopatriation, where data and processing are automatically shifted to sovereign clouds to ensure sensitive information stays within its required jurisdiction.
10. The Identity Perimeter (Absolute Zero Trust)
Identity is the only true perimeter. In 2026, authentication is a continuous process. Systems now monitor micro-behaviours, such as typing cadence and mouse movements. If a user’s behaviour deviates from their established baseline—perhaps indicating a session hijack—access is revoked instantly and automatically.
Insights from the Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026
According to the latest World Economic Forum Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026, the industry is facing a widening divide:
- The AI Assessment Gap: 87% of leaders identified AI-related vulnerabilities as the fastest-growing risk. While 64% now assess AI tools before deployment (up from 37% in 2025), a significant portion of the market remains exposed.
- CEO vs. CISO Disconnect: CEOs rate cyber-enabled fraud as their top worry (73% report personal or network exposure), while CISOs remain focused on the operational fallout of ransomware and supply chain breaches.
- Cyber Inequity: Small organisations are twice as likely to report insufficient resilience compared to large enterprises, primarily due to a lack of specialised cyber talent.
Final Thoughts
The shift towards this model in 2026 reflects a fundamental change in how digital trust is built. Automation is now at the center of every organisation:
- Personal: Security adapts to the individual. If a financial controller’s login patterns change, the system may automatically require an extra layer of biometric verification for high-value transfers.
- Predictive: Systems utilise CTEM to simulate "attack paths" against cloud architecture every hour, fixing misconfigurations before an attacker even discovers them.
- Pervasive: Security is embedded into the business fabric. Even autonomous warehouse robots now have internal agents that shut down motors if they detect tampering.
In 2026, success belongs to those who stop viewing security as a cost and start viewing it as the foundation for innovation and growth.