If 2025 proved anything, it is that today’s most damaging cyber breaches rarely stem from a lack of tools. They stem from misplaced trust.
Attackers are no longer battering firewalls or brute-forcing logins. They are exploiting assumptions. Trusted vendors. Familiar integrations. Long-standing processes. Cultural habits that quietly say, “This is safe.”
Security strategies still rest on the belief that trusted systems and relationships are inherently secure. Yet many of the most severe breaches in recent years have entered through third parties, APIs, integrations, and supply-chain partners, not through an organisation’s own perimeter.
CISOs have learned how to harden endpoints, enforce identity controls, and secure the edge. But these defences can create an illusion of safety when the “side entrance” remains unguarded.
The future is not just “zero trust everywhere.” It is consistent, behaviour-driven security that treats partners, files, and data flows with the same scrutiny as internal systems.
This shift is already visible in industrial environments. Operators are moving away from simply tracking assets toward securing how data moves. File security, especially for configurations, backups, and removable media, is proving more reliable than trying to secure every device.
In a world where suppliers still arrive with USB drives in hand, trust without verification is no longer viable.
And because trust is behavioural, not technical, the biggest changes ahead will not be engineered in silicon. They will be built into culture, governance, and mindset.
Defenders often anchor around tools that work. Comfort becomes pattern. Pattern becomes predictability. Predictability becomes opportunity for attackers.
While teams doubled down on endpoints and identity, attackers quietly shifted into areas examined with less intensity: files, removable media, and operational environments. At the same time, large language models are accelerating phishing, impersonation, and reconnaissance with unprecedented realism.
The question for defenders must change from “What can my tools detect?” to “What assumptions might an attacker exploit?”
Attackers, meanwhile, are becoming more strategic. In 2026, they will increasingly target critical infrastructure sectors such as healthcare, water services, and regional energy providers. These organisations operate on thin margins, depend on ageing systems, and cannot tolerate downtime. That makes them ideal targets.
Supply-chain dependence magnifies the risk. External specialists and remote technicians create indirect access points beyond direct control. Once again, trust becomes the entry point.
Technology alone cannot fix this. Regulators know it. The next phase of cybersecurity will be shaped not just by better tools, but by enforced accountability across ecosystems.
In 2026, the most dangerous vulnerability will not be a missing patch.
It will be an assumption.
