Cyber trends shaping our world in 2026
In today’s hyperconnected world, cyberthreats are evolving faster than enterprise defenses can adapt.
The Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026, released by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Accenture, notes that 87 percent of global CEOs identified artificial intelligence (AI)-related vulnerabilities as the fastest-growing cyber threat throughout 2025 and 94 percent view AI as the most significant driver of change in cybersecurity in 2026.
As AI and related technologies develop rapidly and adoption accelerates, companies need to strike a balance between innovation and security.
While building cyber-resilient systems remains a challenge, three key cyber trends from Accenture can help business leaders reinvent their cyberstrategies in 2026.
First, AI is both an ally and an adversary
The dual nature of AI will be front and center in 2026. As generative or gen AI matures and companies find new ways to use the technology to strengthen their cyberdefenses, threat actors will also leverage the same technology to enhance the scale, speed, sophistication and precision of their attacks.
Cybercriminals are using gen AI to scale social engineering efforts aimed at producing realistic phishing emails, deepfake audio and video files and falsified documentation that can evade conventional detection systems and, in some instances, human scrutiny. Financial theft remains a top motivation for these cybercrimes, with data monetization, extortion and intellectual property theft becoming key goals.
Locally, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported that financial institutions lost P5.82 billion from cyberattacks in 2024, with phishing, card-not-present fraud, identity fraud or account takeover and hacking revealed as some of the top contributing cyber risks.
These threats, powered by advanced AI, are presenting a clear danger to organizations like financial institutions. However, at the same time, the sector can turn the tables by leveraging gen AI to boost cyberdefenses. The emergence of AI-driven threat monitoring tools is narrowing the window between initial intrusion and defense remediation. Further, AI is enhancing customer data encryption to boost fraud detection and identity verification.
AI solutions like these are helping organizations level up threat detection, better predict potential security breaches, improve response times and automate protocols for enhanced adherence to data privacy regulations.
Second, agentic AI will reshape how organizations operate, presenting new opportunities and challenges
Accenture’s 2026 Pulse of Change report shows that 71 percent of leaders globally are investing in AI and other digital tools. In fact, many employees have already started working with AI agents—having either used or tested it once before (43 percent) or are already working with the technology on a regular basis (32 percent). This supports the FutureScape 2026 research of the International Data Corp. that almost half (45 percent) of organizations worldwide will scale their use of AI agents by 2030.
Indeed, AI agents have moved from being experimental tools to becoming essential business partners. From analyzing financial data and assessing one’s creditworthiness to managing supply chain workflows from inventory to delivery, agentic AI can enhance overall productivity and operational efficiency.
Such autonomy, however, opens up risk and lowers the barrier for less sophisticated threat actors to launch attacks. The availability and accessibility of AI-driven tools enable these threat actors with less experience and expertise to target critical infrastructure and OT networks through automated attacks and increasingly convincing deepfakes. Without strong governance, AI agents can be manipulated through design flaws or be misused to propagate errors that can cause serious harm to security frameworks.
Third, in addition to AI, quantum and space frontiers are here
While AI continues to dominate the cybersecurity environment, other technologies and threat vectors are slowly gaining traction. Quantum and space are among these segments and the emerging risks that come with their progress should be closely monitored.
Quantum computing is projected to impact cybersecurity more than ever within the next 12 months. It is advancing rapidly and its unprecedented computation power can be used to break encryption algorithms and put encrypted sensitive data at risk. Thus, we will see a massive leap in quantum-safe encryption as companies prepare for the inevitable—all public key encryption will soon be made obsolete because of quantum technology.
Addressing the challenge of building quantum-resilient systems will come in two areas: interoperability and performance. It’s not enough for an enterprise to have quantum-safe encryption. Its partners and vendors must share the same quantum-safe mindset, too. Postquantum systems that work together need to work together at the same speed, which is critical in areas like health care and banking.
New satellites will be launched into space, with plans developing for 5G communications, on-orbit data centers, zero-G manufacturing and even lunar development. Close to home, the Philippine Space Agency is set to launch what is said to be the country’s most advanced earth observation satellite called “Mula” or Multispectral Unit for Land Assessment, between June and August 2026. Data from Mula will be used to improve agriculture, disaster response, environmental monitoring and overall national development.
Just like on the ground, this new critical technology ecosystem will require strong managed security protections to defend against threat actors, who see space as an opportunity to steal important information and disrupt society. By 2030, satellite-based positioning, navigation and timing will make a huge difference for critical industries like aviation, maritime, utilities and finance.
The convergence of all these cyber trends will lead to an even more complex and dynamic cybersecurity environment this year. C-suite executives must start reframing their view of cybersecurity because it is no longer a compliance issue nor a back-office function. It should be at the forefront of an organization’s priorities—with the need to put in place the right processes to mitigate risks, focusing on cyber skills training for talent across all levels and with greater commitment from the top to build cyber-resilient systems. The security choices organizations make today will determine how agile and adaptable they will be to address persistent and aggressive cyber threats in 2026 and beyond.
