Top cybersecurity threats and predictions for 2026

The rise of generative AI has transformed phishing from a crude, easily spotted scam into a sophisticated, highly personalized threat. Cybercriminals now use AI to craft emails and messages that mimic legitimate communications with near-perfect grammar, tone, and formatting. These messages often impersonate executives or trusted vendors, making them difficult to detect.

Even more concerning is the use of AI-generated deepfakes—realistic audio and video impersonations of colleagues, executives, or public figures. These are increasingly used in social engineering attacks to manipulate employees into transferring funds, sharing credentials, or bypassing security protocols. In Canada, scammers used a deepfake video of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to promote a fraudulent investment scheme, leading to financial losses for unsuspecting citizens. In the U.S., a multi-million-dollar fraud was executed using deepfake video impersonations of a CFO and employees during a corporate video call, resulting in $25 million in unauthorized transfers. As these tools become more accessible, organizations must invest in advanced detection technologies and employee awareness training to stay ahead of this evolving threat.

In these attacks, actors seek to compromise third-party vendors or suppliers to access the target organization’s systems or data. They can then undermine the security of the entire supply chain, potentially leading to data breaches, system compromises, or other adverse consequences.

Recent high-profile incidents have shown how a single compromised vendor can disrupt entire sectors, from healthcare to automotive. In Canada, 58% of businesses reported cyber incidents linked to vendors or suppliers, and this is surging. The World Economic Forum also highlights supply chain interdependencies as the top ecosystem cyber risk, with limited visibility and inconsistent security standards across partners amplifying the threat.

Organizations must adopt robust third-party risk management practices, including continuous monitoring, contractual security requirements, and incident response coordination.

Despite the agility and scalability of cloud environments, misconfigurations remain the leading cause of cloud-related data breaches. Common issues include overly permissive access controls, exposed storage buckets, and unmonitored APIs. These vulnerabilities often stem from rapid development cycles, lack of visibility, and inconsistent security practices across teams.

Legacy systems compound the risk. Many organizations continue to rely on outdated infrastructure that lacks modern security controls, making them prime targets for exploitation. As cloud adoption accelerates, businesses must implement continuous configuration monitoring, enforce least-privilege access, and modernize legacy systems to reduce their attack surface.

Credential-based attacks continue to be a leading threat, accounting for a significant portion of cyber incidents across North America. Threat actors use stolen or reused login credentials, session tokens, and API keys to gain unauthorized access to systems, often bypassing traditional malware detection. These attacks are especially dangerous in environments with weak multi-factor authentication or misconfigured identity systems.

In Canada and the U.S., recent breaches have exploited identity and access management vulnerabilities to infiltrate networks and escalate privileges. These incidents frequently lead to data theft or ransomware deployment. As identity becomes the new perimeter in cloud and hybrid environments, organizations must adopt zero-trust principles, enforce strong authentication policies, and monitor for unusual access patterns to reduce exposure.

The Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2025 indicates that organizations continue to face a rising tide of ransomware attacks, with human-operated ransomware incidents increasing by over 200% compared to the previous year. Ransomware is characterized by the encryption, or at times, the modification of critical data to extort a ransom from targeted victims. Cybercriminals are increasingly collaborating, sharing tools and tactics, and casting a wider net to target organizations of all sizes. These factors have contributed to the escalating frequency and sophistication of ransomware incidents, posing a significant risk to businesses and critical infrastructure worldwide.

In July 2025, Ingram Micro, a global IT distributor, was hit by the SafePay ransomware group, forcing the company to shut down key systems for nearly a week. Earlier in the year, the Medusa group targeted a U.S. regional medical center, encrypting radiology systems and stealing 1.2TB of diagnostic data, leading to emergency patient rerouting. And in April, the Qilin ransomware group breached a European investment bank using a VPN zero-day exploit, exfiltrating over 600GB of sensitive data before encrypting systems. In Canada, the House of Commons suffered a ransomware-linked data breach in August 2025, where attackers exploited a Microsoft vulnerability to access and leak personal information of lawmakers and staff. These are just a few examples of incidents that have significantly impacted organizations and people around the world.