The panorama of the cybersecurity by 2026 presents a high level of unpredictabilityaccording to Proofpoint experts, with rising risks from AI blind spots, identity exploitation, evolving phishing and conflict geopolitics among the industry’s biggest highlights in 2026.
After a 2025 marked by a reconfiguration of the way we think about threats and defenses, with rapid advances in generative and agentic AI as highlights, the increasing complexity of the cloud ecosystem and the convergence of criminal and nation-state tactics, in 2026 the most notable trends in security are the following:
1- Agentic AI will dominate and redefine cybersecurity
Perhaps the easiest prediction to make, although it will be necessary to wait for its evolution, is that Agentic AI will redefine cybersecuritysince its repercussions can be quite unexpected. As organizations deploy these systems to manage a multitude of business aspects, from customer service to security automation, they will soon find that their adoption comes with a steep learning curve.
Challenges related to data quality, security and privacy will slow down its large-scale implementation. Meanwhile, systems interoperability will add friction. Successful adoption of agentic systems has the potential to significantly change the landscape, but doing so will only give an advantage to those who approach it with governance and patience.
2 – AI agents will become the new internal threat to cybersecurity
In 2026, the Autonomous agents could surpass humans as the main source of leaks of data. This is because they inherit the same data hygiene issues from businesses. These include excessive permissions, unclassified documents, or outdated access rules.
Together, this can lead agents to display sensitive data to users who should never have access to it. Agents are not simply tools, but will eventually become identities in their own right, susceptible to being deceived or induced to extract and expose data.
Security teams will therefore be forced to treat AI agents as first-class identities, managing their privileges and monitoring behaviors. But also to evaluate its risks.
3 – Prompt injection and model corruption will be even more frequent
The first line of attack It will no longer be firewalls or endpoints, but training flows. Cyber attackers will weaponize corrupt data sets as a new backdoor to access systems, feeding language models and compromising their subsequent behavior.
From tagging files we will move on to classifying machine learning supply chains based on their integrity and reliability. Therefore, security leaders must view the training flow as a critical control point and apply standards to the data that underpins each model, each prompt, and each agent.
4 – Shadow model context protocols will proliferate in companies
In the short term there will be a rise of local unmanaged Model Context Protocol (MCP) serverswhich will act as the upcoming shadow technologies. Malicious agents or endpoints will activate, connect to large public language models, and begin processing business data in real time, outside of any governance or visibility.
At that point, detection alone will be insufficient. Companies will therefore have to automatically register each agent before they gain access. Unless governance mechanisms move forward to force automatic enrollment and real-time trust assessment of every MCP that interacts with corporate data.
5 – Detection engineering in the era of AI as a service
Attackers will have to strive in 2026 to create code that is even more difficult to detect than this year. So far they’ve tried breaking the code into chunks, forming them using ASCII block characters, and even adding random color splashes to confuse scanners.
In view of this it is It is likely that your next step will be to use new QR that can evade current defenses. However, the biggest change will be the misuse of legitimate websites that offer content created quickly with AI.
Cybercriminals do not waste a free account to generate convincing, official-looking documents that lead directly to phishing or malware. Defending against these AI-created honeypots will require smarter sandboxes and more human interaction to detect hidden threats.
6- AI blind spots: the next nightmare of CISOs
Looking to the future, the lack of visibility into where and how AI is being usedespecially by third parties, suppliers and partners; will be one of the biggest blind spots for CISOs. As AI becomes more agentic, organizations could interact with AI systems almost without realizing it.
Even with strict internal policies, companies often have limited visibility into AI practices within their expanded ecosystem. This lack of transparency implies serious risks, mainly in data access and control, so guaranteeing this visibility will be more critical than ever.
7 – AI, both the tool and the objective
Next 2026, AI will be integrated into almost all phases of the attack chain. Cybercriminals will continue to create phishing lures in multiple languages, as well as generate scripts and assemble realistic fake websites in seconds, using AI-powered website builders.
But the most important thing is not just how attackers will use AI, but how defenders will do it. If organizations replace critical security and engineering functions with AI-based automation, they will introduce new vulnerabilities faster than they can actually protect themselves. Furthermore, when they integrate agentic AI tools into their workflows, these systems will become key targets, exploited for the valuable data and access they possess.
8 – Cloud cybersecurity faces its “FIDO downgrade moment”
2026 will be the year of FIDO downgrade, as adversaries focus on reverting secure authentication methods to less secure ones. AI will help attackers automate persistence, lateral movement, and data access, as well as manipulation of OAuth applications.
An increase in the abuse of legitimate services, such as AWS and GCP, for IP address rotation is also expected. At the same time, phishing will be personalized with lures adapted in real time, based on the data of each target.
On the other hand, underground markets will be filled with professional AI-powered phishing kits and, as new forms of connectivity, such as satellite internet, expand access; There will be new regions and cybercrime groups coming into play.
9 – Spy groups will become more stealthy
Las spy campaigns will be more stealthy, personal and difficult to detect next year. Cybercriminals acting in concert with nation-states are now moving away from traditional phishing emails and toward encrypted messaging apps, such as Signal and WhatsApp, where they can build trust through casual, credible conversations before launching their attack.
On the other hand, there are also increasing numbers of threat groups from South Asia and India targeting Western organizations. Especially those related to technology, defense and politics. These campaigns are also growing in sophistication, often in sync with geopolitical events or trade negotiations, where credentials are stolen using code, legitimate remote management tools and cloud platforms to blend in with normal network traffic.
