Preparing for Threats to Come: Cybersecurity Forecast 2026

Google Cloud's Cybersecurity Forecast 2026 report analyzes current trends to anticipate future cybersecurity challenges. The report emphasizes that adversaries will increasingly use AI to enhance and scale their attacks, necessitating enhanced defenses. Prompt injection attacks against AI and social engineering using AI-driven voice cloning are significant growing concerns. AI adoption will also transform security operations centers, enabling analysts to manage AI agents for threat detection. Ransomware, data theft, and multifaceted extortion will continue as financially disruptive cybercrimes, targeting third parties and zero-day vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals are expected to migrate to public blockchains for greater resilience, while virtualization infrastructure becomes a critical target. Nation-state actors like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea will persist in espionage, disruption, and financial cyber operations. China's cyber operations will continue to be high in volume, prioritizing stealth and zero-day exploits. Organizations should prepare by understanding these threats and exploring specific regional challenges in EMEA and JAPAC.