Overview
- CEOs now rank cyber-enabled fraud and phishing as the top business risk while CISOs still cite ransomware as their leading operational concern, according to the WEF’s 2026 outlook.
- AI-related vulnerabilities rose fastest in 2025, with 87% of leaders reporting increases and 94% expecting AI to be the most consequential force shaping cybersecurity this year.
- Organizations are tightening AI governance, nearly doubling pre-deployment security assessments from 37% to 64%, with data leaks (34%) and adversarial capabilities (29%) topping AI worries.
- Geopolitical fragmentation is reshaping strategies, with 64% of organizations factoring politically motivated attacks into risk plans and 31% expressing low confidence in national incident response capacity.
- Fraud has become pervasive, with 77% reporting increases in fraud and phishing and 73% saying they or someone they know were affected, prompting calls for intelligence sharing, aligned standards and targeted investment.