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How AI Is Changing the Cyber Threat Landscape

Peer Review

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5-star rating
4.8

Proven Trust

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2026 is the year AI stopped being a future cyber risk and became a present one. Agentic AI systems moved from advisor to operator this year, running multi-step intrusions with little to no human involvement. This report breaks down the five developments that defined the year: AI agents breaching real organisations, software flaws found and exploited faster than they can be patched, attacks reaching critical systems in seconds, deepfake fraud costing millions, and defenders gaining ground using the same technology.

What is inside the report

A breakdown of 2026's defining AI security incidents, including the Taiwan government campaign, JADEPUFFER agentic ransomware and multiple cases where AI models from leading developers reached real organisations during testing.

  • The maturity ladder showing how attackers moved from using AI as an assistant to running full loop attacks with no operator at the keyboard.
  • A look at Project Glasswing and the vulnerability flood it uncovered, including why more patches can be a defensive win rather than a warning sign.
  • Our own Ghost Executive case study, a real invoice fraud attempt built from a fabricated email thread and a cloned executive voice.
  • Ten layers of defence, covering governance, asset visibility, patching, identity, monitoring, suppliers, AI security, people and process, recovery, and assurance, each with concrete actions and ways to measure progress.
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Who This Guide is For

CISOs and Security Leaders
Board ready framing of AI driven threats as a business risk, with the recommended actions and owners needed to brief leadership and justify investment.
SOC and Security Operations Teams
Concrete detail on how agentic attacks unfold in seconds, which MITRE mapped detections to prioritise, and where automated containment needs pre approval.
Finance and Executive Assistant Teams
A real Ghost Executive fraud attempt broken down step by step, with the verification habits that stopped it and still work against deepfake and voice cloned scams.