AI has become just as beneficial for attackers as they have for defenders. For example, bad actors are augmenting their phishing campaigns with generative AI and using automation to streamline large-scale reconnaissance and attacks.

There is a silver lining, however. The evolution of AI in cybersecurity is improving detection, investigation, and response capabilities, and fast. This helps security teams detect subtle hacker tradecraft sooner than previously possible. But even the most sophisticated AI detection requires human security analysts to triage root cause, disseminate intelligence across teams, and react to threats.

Managed detection services like Huntress are helping organizations of all sizes without security teams fill this gap by providing 24/7 security monitoring, investigation, and response backed by human analysts.

As businesses move workloads to the cloud, security tools and strategies have struggled to keep pace with how fast that migration happens. In 2026, cloud security developments are shifting past misconfigurations and into identity. Attackers are logging in with stolen or abused credentials. The real risk today is permissive access policies, session hijacking, and privilege escalation that blend into normal cloud activity and go undetected for months. 

Zero Trust architecture is the framework most organizations are turning to in response, but despite the terminology, it still requires placing a lot of trust in your security tools. For Zero Trust architecture to provide clear visibility into who is accessing your systems, from where, and what they’re doing, you’ll want to enforce least-privilege access policies, detect anomalous credential usage, and discover session hijacking.

With hybrid and remote work still prevalent, anyone can access corporate resources from any device, anywhere in the world, in real time—if they have the right credentials. If your remote employees connect to the corporate VPN from their home network or any shared working location, you can’t see those access points, and you also can’t manage them. Endpoint protection, identity monitoring, and session-based authentication techniques will be critical.

Supply chain attacks used to be expensive and difficult to execute. Now they’re one of the most dependable attack vectors for breaching dozens of organizations at a time. Instead of targeting each organization individually, hackers infiltrate a software repository of one vendor or service provider to reach an entire supply chain’s customers.

For that reason, third-party risk assessments and supply chain monitoring are receiving increased attention from businesses. Vetting vendors thoroughly, detecting abnormalities in third-party software, and maintaining visibility into the access vendors have to your organization will become table stakes. It also means having an incident response plan specifically for breached vendors.

The top ransomware trends that scare us the most for 2026 are double- and triple-extortion ransomware attacks. Attackers are exfiltrating (and threatening to publish) sensitive information before encrypting it.

But cybercriminals aren't limiting this stealthy behavior to ransomware. According to the Huntress 2025 Cyber Threat Report, time-to-ransom (TTR) stretched from 17 to 20 hours as attackers prioritize staying hidden over moving fast. Rather than rushing to encrypt, they’re focused on stealing data first, and setting up the double and triple extortion scenarios that make recovery far more costly.  Decreasing dwell time (how long attackers have between breaching a network and security teams discovering the intrusion) can frustrate attackers' efforts and stop worst-case scenarios before they occur.

Stopping every attack at the perimeter is unrealistic. Minimizing the time an attacker has inside your network is what matters.

Updating security compliance regulations is a necessary reality. They push organizations to have better logging, access controls, and documentation around incident response. While cybersecurity laws differ from state to state and country to country, if you operate in multiple markets, they can feel overwhelming.

One of the challenges with cybersecurity compliance is that it can create a false sense of security. Just because you’re doing the bare minimum to check a box for compliance doesn’t mean your organization is secure. While compliance and security teams may attend the same meetings, they’re coming to the office to solve different problems. As threats continue to grow in sophistication, businesses should take security compliance standards as a baseline for their security program.

Looking at cybersecurity trends can feel like rowing against the current. As your organization tightens up its security programs and response capabilities, attackers will evolve. They’re opportunistic. They’re patient. They'll settle in for the long game if it means bypassing your security controls.