2026 Cybersecurity Outlook: Expert Predictions, Priorities, and Challenges
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Featuring insights from Lisa Ventura, CEO, AI & Cyber Security Association; David Hatch, COO, Pathlines Pensions UK Ltd; Daniel Sibthorpe, Director of Cyber Security & Counter Fraud, Crowe; Gordon Turnball, Director of Security Engagement, Liberty Global
The year ahead promises a complex mix of opportunity and threat. Rapid innovation in AI, shifting regulatory pressure, and the ongoing fragmentation of digital infrastructure have created both strategic and operational risk.
We spoke with four industry leaders responsible for cybersecurity across enterprise, financial services, government, and advisory domains.
This report includes their unfiltered responses to three critical questions:
- What do you see as the highest risk emerging threats for 2026?
- What capabilities or investments should business leaders prioritise next year?
- What operational challenges do you expect to become more significant?
Alongside these insights, FoxTech offers five strategic recommendations to help business and technology leaders build cyber resilience in 2026.
Note: Expert insights in this report have been summarised and paraphrased for clarity. They do not represent direct quotations.
At-a-Glance: 2026 Security Priorities
Across all four expert interviews, seven key themes emerged for CISOs and business leaders heading into 2026:
1.
AI-powered attacks are scaling fast.
Deepfakes and LLMs are driving a new era of phishing and impersonation.
2.
Shadow AI is the new insider threat.
Staff are using unsanctioned AI tools without realising the risk.
3.
Third-party risk is growing.
Supply chain blind spots are turning into first-party failures.
4.
Compliance demands are rising.
DORA, TPSA, and sector-specific guidance require new levels of readiness.
5.
Security culture needs an upgrade.
Old-school training is failing. Inclusive, trauma-informed design is outperforming.
6.
Strategic communication is now essential.
Boards want clarity, not jargon.
7.
Teams are overstretched.
From AI sprawl to audit fatigue, operational capacity is under pressure.
🛠️ See “FoxTech’s 5 Recommendations” below for concrete actions you can take now.
2026 Cybersecurity Priorities Infographic
Expert Insights
Lisa Ventura, CEO, AI & Cyber Security Association
Q1: Highest risk threats for 2026
AI-generated social engineering and disinformation campaigns are growing rapidly in volume and credibility. Attackers now use synthetic voice, video, and personalised phishing content at scale, targeting both individuals and companies. These tactics aren’t just breaching systems; they’re eroding trust.
Q2: What to prioritise
Leaders must urgently invest in human-centric security cultures, ones built on inclusivity, trauma-informed design, and accessibility-first awareness. Ventura stresses that conventional training no longer works; micro-learning and positive reinforcement are more effective. She also urges the adoption of AI risk governance frameworks and regional resilience orchestration models to help firms handle emerging threats at scale.
Q3: Operational challenges
Security teams are beyond capacity. Not only is the tooling landscape fragmented, but few CISOs are equipped to translate risk into business language. Ventura notes that strategic communication will define effective leadership in 2026. Metrics need to move beyond incident counts and start tracking behavioural improvement, training engagement, and risk comprehension at all levels.
“The best security controls in the world are worthless if you can’t explain why they matter.”
David Hatch, COO, Pathlines Pensions UK Ltd
Q1: Highest risk threats for 2026
Generative AI is enabling highly scalable, deceptive impersonation attacks. Employees and even executives often don’t fully understand how data is collected, used, or repurposed. Hatch points out that AI also presents serious risks through third-party suppliers who use it without sufficient oversight.
Q2: What to prioritise
Hatch recommends cross-functional crisis testing, vendor incident planning, and comprehensive employee education on AI deception. He emphasises that fraud awareness must extend to customers, too, especially in sectors like pensions where trust is critical. Cybersecurity, he says, must be positioned as a shared organisational responsibility.
Q3: Operational challenges
Rapid digital innovation is straining due diligence processes.
Hatch warns that unless firms embed governance into development, they risk becoming non-compliant or exploitable.
With AI expanding fast, leaders must act now to develop clear usage policies, monitor tools, and simplify internal escalation procedures.
“Many organizations lack visibility into how AI systems interact with sensitive data, creating compliance and risk blind spots.”
Daniel Sibthorpe, Director of Cyber Security & Counter Fraud, Crowe
Q1: Highest risk threats for 2026
AI misuse by internal actors is growing, with well-meaning staff using unregulated tools for convenience, and a small but dangerous minority exploiting AI to cause deliberate harm. The threat of shadow AI is compounded by invisible exposure across third-party systems, where data handling and tool integrations are often opaque.
Q2: What to prioritise
Sibthorpe urges firms to audit their AI footprint, including how internal and external systems use or generate sensitive data. Building supply chain resilience is equally important, which means mapping risk inheritance, verifying SLAs, and testing vendor recovery procedures. He stresses that visibility is more urgent than control.
Q3: Operational challenges
Sibthorpe notes that business continuity and incident response readiness will become more significant.
As organisations depend more on third parties and automated systems, their ability to maintain critical services in the face of disruption must be tested and improved.
Governance can no longer be reactive, it must be built in from the start. Leaders must integrate it from the ground up, embedding compliance across project planning, procurement, and procurement onboarding workflows rather than treating it like an afterthought.
“Employees may use unsanctioned AI tools to process corporate data without realising the potential compliance and security risks.”
Gordon Turnball, Director of Security Engagement, Liberty Global
Q1: Highest risk threats for 2026
The old security paradigms are struggling to keep up with AI-enabled risks and regulatory complexity. Turnball highlights that security models built around fixed perimeters and siloed functions won’t survive the coming wave of adaptive threats and compliance convergence.
Q2: What to prioritise
Organisations must build compliance visibility into their daily operations. This means automation, documentation, and defensible audit trails, not just reactive fixes. Turnball recommends investing in AI-assisted detection and automated playbooks, which reduce response time while supporting consistent compliance.
Q3: Operational challenges
Security functions are under pressure from every angle, regulators, boards, and end-users alike.
The cultural shift remains a hurdle, especially in teams where security is seen as a blocker.
Demonstrating value through clear communication, measurable outcomes, and integrated tooling will be key to evolving the security function.
“I see a significant rise in social engineering tactics, particularly through the utilisation of deepfakes and AI technology.”
FoxTech’s 5 Recommendations for 2026 Cyber Resilience
- Create an AI Governance Policy
Map out sanctioned AI use, educate staff, and implement controls for monitoring and oversight. - Operationalise Third-Party Risk Management
Move beyond static vendor assessments. Integrate third-party risk into response planning and conduct regular audit drills. - Modernise Security Awareness and Culture
Invest in psychologically safe, accessible, and localised training programmes that go beyond phishing tests. - Enable Strategic Security Communication
Equip senior leadership with security guidance that translates complex technical and cyber risk into clear, business‑relevant insight, enabling informed executive decisions under increasing regulatory and AI‑driven pressure. - Test, Detect, and Respond Continuously
Shift towards continuous risk visibility, early threat identification, and regular validation of security controls to maintain resilience as attack complexity rises.
About FoxTech
FoxTech helps regulated organisations secure their systems, data, and people.
Our human-first approach to cybersecurity blends best-in-class tools with strategic advisory support for IT, compliance, and risk leaders.
FoxTech supports each of these priorities through tailored advisory services, advanced detection and response tools, and compliance-aligned implementation. Talk to us about operationalising your 2026 strategy.