Industry reports, articles, and forecasts are painting a picture of what is in store for 2026:

• AI is taking the center stage in attacks and breaches: Attackers are already leveraging AI for realistic phishing, deepfakes, voice cloning, automated exploitation, and mutating malware. Hackers used Anthropic’s Claude chatbot to attack multiple Mexican government agencies and steal 150GB of sensitive data.
• Stolen passwords remain the #1 entry point: Identity-based attacks and stolen credentials continue to dominate, and accounts for the majority of successful breaches. BreachWatcher was specifically developed to assist with identifying these stolen credentials and allowing victims to act and protect their accounts.
• Ransomware and extortion is evolving: The costs of ransomware breaches are soaring, and attackers are using advanced attacks to bypass security measures and target supply chains. Extortion tactics now combines data theft, encryption, and public shaming.
• Attacks are becoming faster and more expensive: Technology and AI has directly contributed to a drop in the time attackers require to compromise a network, some breaches happen in under an hour. Quantum computing risks are also on the horizon, creating another frontier for cybersecurity defenders to conquer.