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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →The World Economic Forum (WEF) identifies three leading cybersecurity trends for 2026: AI is accelerating changes in the cyber arms race, geopolitics is shaping cyber risk, and cyber-enabled fraud is threatening companies and households. Its report also flags supply-chain vulnerabilities and unequal access to cybersecurity resources as important resilience challenges.
The findings come from the WEF’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026, published on 12 January 2026 in collaboration with Accenture. Its survey drew responses from 804 business leaders in 92 countries, including 105 CEOs and 316 CISOs. Percentages below describe respondents’ reported experiences, assessments or expectations; they are not counts of all cyberattacks worldwide or estimates of the probability that an attack will occur.
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1. AI is changing both attacks and defenses
AI is the report’s most prominent force for change, but the concern is broader than attackers using new tools. Organizations also have to secure the AI systems they adopt, protect data entered into them and govern how those systems are used.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minute- According to the WEF’s 2026 survey, 94% of respondents expected AI to be the most significant driver of change in cybersecurity in the year ahead.
- In the same report, 87% identified AI-related vulnerabilities as the fastest-growing cyber risk over 2025.
- The share of respondents saying their organization assessed the security of AI tools rose from 37% in 2025 to 64% in 2026.
Data leaks associated with generative AI were the leading AI concern for 2026, selected by 34% of respondents; 29% pointed to the advancement of adversarial capabilities. The concern pattern had shifted from 2025, when adversarial capabilities led at 47% and generative-AI data leaks were at 22%. These are survey concerns, not percentages of organizations that experienced a leak or attack.
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The WEF describes AI as useful to defenders as well as attackers: it can support detection, defense and response, while poor implementation or misuse can expose data and enable cyberattacks or other online harms. The report’s proposed safeguards include governance, security-by-design, monitoring and keeping human judgment central.
2. Geopolitics is shaping cyber strategy and readiness
Geopolitical volatility is not just a backdrop to cyber risk in the report; it affects how organizations plan to mitigate it. The WEF says geopolitics remained the top factor influencing cyber risk mitigation strategies in 2026.
- 64% of surveyed organizations said their mitigation strategies accounted for geopolitically motivated attacks, including critical-infrastructure disruption or espionage.
- Among the largest organizations surveyed, 91% said geopolitical volatility had changed their cybersecurity strategy.
- 31% of respondents reported low confidence in their country’s ability to respond to a major cyber incident, up from 26% in the prior year.
The executive summary also reports regional variation in confidence about protecting critical infrastructure: 84% in the Middle East and North Africa and 13% in Latin America and the Caribbean. These figures reflect the survey’s regional responses to that confidence question, not the views of every resident or a national-population measure.
3. Cyber-enabled fraud is a direct threat to people and organizations
Fraud is one of the report’s three headline trends because cyber-enabled crime reaches beyond corporate networks into everyday financial and identity risks. According to the WEF’s 2026 report, 73% of respondents said they or someone in their network had been personally affected by cyber-enabled fraud during 2025. Separately, 77% said cyber-enabled fraud and phishing had increased overall.
The most commonly reported attack types were phishing—including voice and text-message variants—payment fraud and identity theft. These figures describe survey respondents’ experiences and perceptions, not the proportion of people worldwide who were victimized.
The WEF notes different priorities by role: CEOs rated cyber-enabled fraud as their top concern, while CISOs remained focused on ransomware and supply-chain resilience. Fraud’s prominence does not mean ransomware has gone away; the report describes it as a persistent threat.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Other risks that affect cyber resilience
Third-party and supply-chain vulnerabilities
For large companies, dependence on suppliers can make security difficult to verify. The WEF reports that 65% of large companies named third-party and supply-chain vulnerabilities as their greatest cyber-resilience challenge, compared with 54% in 2025. Organizations may have limited visibility into suppliers’ software, hardware and services, and a breach at one supplier can cascade through interconnected systems.
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The report treats unequal access to cybersecurity expertise and resources as a resilience weakness, particularly for smaller organizations and less-resourced regions. Its launch release says smaller organizations were twice as likely as large firms to report insufficient resilience. It also identifies workforce-skill constraints in Latin America and the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. These are WEF survey findings about the stated groups, not a measure of every organization in those regions.
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Emerging vectors toward 2030
The trends chapter also discusses autonomous systems and robotics, digital currencies, and space and seabed infrastructure as areas that could shape cybersecurity toward 2030. They are emerging-vector considerations rather than the report’s top current threats: 26% of respondents said autonomous systems and robotics would affect cybersecurity in 2026, while 9% said space technologies would have the greatest impact.
How to read the WEF’s threat picture
The report presents trends and respondent perspectives, not a single universal ranking of attack likelihood. Its practical message is that organizations need several kinds of readiness at once: AI governance and security assessment, preparation for geopolitical and infrastructure-related incidents, effective fraud defenses, better supplier visibility, and access to trained cybersecurity staff. The balance will differ by organization, sector and exposure.
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