From agentic AI and quantum threats to increasing regulatory scrutiny for cloud service providers, 2026's cyber landscape demands pre-emptive action. How can businesses prepare for 2026 and beyond?
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Cybersecurity remained a major concern for companies in 2025, with malicious incidents resulting in losses amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds for businesses, including Marks and Spencer’s (M&S) and Jaguar Land Rover.
Rapid new developments in AI continue to transform the threat landscape with 47% of organisations citing advances powered by generative AI (genAI) as their primary cybersecurity concern.
As AI capabilities grow more sophisticated, its exploitation by malicious actors is poised to become a pervasive threat. “Threat actor use of AI is expected to transition decisively from the exception to the norm,” according to Google’s 2026 cyber risk report.
Ransomware, data theft and extortion were seen to be the most financially disruptive categories of cybercrime in 2025.
With this trend set to continue in 2026, cybersecurity is no longer merely a technical concern but a core element of business strategy.
Lexology PRO explores emerging cybersecurity trends and five top priorities for companies in 2026 and beyond.
Shift from reactive to pre-emptive cybersecurity
Gartner expects that by 2030, pre-emptive cybersecurity solutions will account for half of security spending, replacing traditional detection-and-response methods.
Ransomware incidents reported by businesses globally more than doubled over the last five years, according to Verizon. As it becomes increasingly inevitable that most companies will face some form of cyber threat, it’s prudent to shift from a reactive to a pre-emptive approach to security.
Pre-emptive solutions utilise predictive threat intelligence by collating information from security alerts, public online discussions and records of past cyber-attacks. Advanced analytics then process this information to identify emerging risks and neutralise them before they become an active threat.
Such tools also have threat exposure management capabilities, providing criticality ratings to help organisations prioritise which cyber vulnerabilities to address urgently.
Even without investing in specific tools, companies can shift to a pre-emptive approach by carrying out incident response planning and drills, proactively testing the effectiveness of their cybersecurity protocols and rectifying weaknesses before they are exposed by threat actors.
Strengthen cloud security and resilience
In 2025, virtually all digital interactions rely on cloud computing. The repercussions that flow from disruption at a major cloud service provider (CSP) were underscored in October when an AWS outage grounded online platforms globally, from banking apps to communication services.
The AWS outage was caused by a technical error, rather than a cyberattack, but the scale of the fallout is indicative of the disruption that an attack against a CSP could cause.
The CrowdStrike incident of July 2024 caused even more widespread disruption, affecting global transport networks, financial services and retailers when a defective software update brought down systems supported by Microsoft.
Lawmakers are moving to reinforce CPS resilience with new regulations imposing stricter cybersecurity and resilience measures for many service providers. The EU Network and Information Systems Directive 2022 (NIS2) classifies CSPs as “essential services,” meaning they are directly subject to enhanced data protection, incident reporting and supply chain security requirements. The UK Cyber Resilience Bill mirrors key principles of NIS2.
Even companies that fall outside the scope of NIS2 and similar legislation will need to keep pace with emerging cloud security trends and threats, to maintain operational resilience and safeguard company systems and data. For instance, adopting a zero-trust approach to cloud security and complying with data sovereignty rules.
Harness agentic AI while managing new risks
Agentic AI systems are autonomous, capable of reasoning, planning and executing multi-step tasks to achieve complex goals, currently being dubbed “the new frontier in cyber defence.”
Agentic AI security systems are expected to be able to detect cyber threats in real time and launch coordinated responses across networks, adjusting their approach in response to active threats.
In order to benefit from agentic AI, organisations will need to develop “comprehensive methodologies, frameworks, and tools to effectively map their new AI ecosystems and to assess any security vulnerabilities that are introduced,” says Google’s 2026 cyber risk report.
Google anticipates the rise of “agentic identity management,” which will expand the concept of identity and access management to treat AI agents as distinct digital actors, each with its own managed identity.
While agentic AI presents promising new opportunities, automating security teams’ complex workflows, it also introduces new categories of risk, as malicious actors move to weaponise the technology or exploit vulnerabilities in companies’ systems.
Businesses will need to mitigate against risks, including “cross-agent task escalation,” when malicious agents exploit trust mechanisms to gain unauthorised privileges, and “synthetic identity attacks” – adversaries impersonating agent identities to bypass trust mechanisms.
Prepare for quantum threats
Quantum computers have the potential to solve complex statistical problems, far beyond the capabilities of “traditional” computers. While the technology is still in its infancy, interest and investment is growing. Government investors alone have pledged US$34 billion worth of investments in quantum computing, according to a 2025 McKinsey report.
Despite the predicted benefits, authorities are warning companies to prepare for a new era of quantum threats. Earlier this year, the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) issued new guidance aimed at critical service providers, including transport and energy providers, calling them to prepare for “post-quantum cryptography.”
Cryptography is a common encryption method deployed in scenarios from mobile phones to online banking. Quantum computing’s ability to complete complex calculations with incredible speed means it could seriously undermine current encryption methods.
The NCSC warns that organisations should transition to quantum-resistant encryption methods by 2035. To stay ahead, companies should begin assessing whether their existing cybersecurity protocols are sufficient to protect against novel, rapidly advancing technological threats.
Protect your security teams from burnout
Given the increasingly complex, sophisticated cyber threat landscape, it’s not surprising that a growing number of security professionals are experiencing burnout, stress and other mental health issues.
55% of security professionals experience sleep problems due to long work hours, according to a survey by the Chartered Institute of Information Security, while 35% of chief information security officers in the UK feel stressed and overworked frequently, a study from cybersecurity firm Splunk found.
High levels of stress can be attributed to the persistent, high-stakes nature of combatting cyber threats, heightened by the rapidly evolving threat landscape, regulatory scrutiny and internal pressure.
While new, automated security tools could soon alleviate the workload for some security professionals, every technological advancement also potentially equips malicious actors with new, sophisticated methods of attack.
Failing to protect security employees from burnout and fatigue, meaning they are unable to perform their jobs as effectively, is likely to render businesses even more vulnerable. Companies need to take this into account as they develop their 2026 cyber strategies.