Insights

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence across business feels new, urgent and at times overwhelming. Yet for many technology and security leaders, there is a strong sense of déjà vu. The conversations happening today about AI adoption closely mirror those that surrounded early cloud adoption more than a decade ago. The same mixture of excitement, scepticism, regulatory anxiety and skills shortages is resurfacing, just with different technology at the centre. 

Data privacy remains one of the most critical business issues in 2026, but the conversation has matured. Data is still one of the most valuable assets most organisations possess, yet it is now more distributed, more interconnected and more exposed than ever before. Cloud platforms, AI systems, third-party integrations and machine identities mean data is constantly being accessed, processed and moved in ways that are not always fully understood.

Modern cyber attacks aren’t defined by single vulnerabilities or isolated failures. They succeed by exploiting combinations of weaknesses, misconfigurations, identity gaps, and blind spots in detection. Yet many organisations still approach security as a set of disconnected activities: exposure management on one side and threat detection on the other. 

Operational Technology environments are under growing pressure to connect. Business demands for remote access, real-time data, analytics, and integration with enterprise systems are continuing to rise. At the same time, regulatory scrutiny and threat activity targeting industrial systems have increased. Organisations must enable connectivity without compromising safety, reliability, or operational resilience. 

Deepfake video, synthetic voice, and AI-generated personas are now capable of mimicking real people with unsettling accuracy. For many organisations, the challenge is no longer spotting a poorly written phishing email, but determining whether the person on the phone, in a video call, or in an email thread is even real.

As organisations move into 2026, the question is no longer whether an incident will occur, but how well a business can withstand it, contain it, and recover without serious disruption. This shift in thinking reflects a broader change in the industry, one that is redefining what resilience really means in an era shaped by automation, AI and human decision making.

2025 was defined by some of the most disruptive and revealing cyber attacks in recent memory. While headline statistics suggested that the average cost of cyber incidents declined year on year, a small number of high-impact attacks involving household names such as Marks & Spencer and Jaguar Land Rover dramatically altered the picture. 

Our theme for this year’s Security First conferences and our 2026 Trends and Predictions Guide is Resilience redefined: securing the human-AI era. But what exactly does that mean? In this blog we explain it and why it will be the theme of 2026. 

In 2026, our Security First Conferences are returning and with a clear mission: to help organisations redefine resilience in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, automation and accelerating risk.  

Public sector organisations are operating in an environment where cyber threats are escalating in both volume and sophistication. From local councils and government departments to education and healthcare providers, demand for digital public services continues to grow, yet many organisations are struggling to keep pace with the security risks that come with increased connectivity. The result is a sector caught between rising expectations, expanding attack surfaces and limited resources to defend them. 

With 2026 just around the corner and with the release of our 2026 Trends and Predictions guide, it’s the perfect time to look back at the numbers that shaped cyber security in 2025. We’ve pulled together 25 standout statistics that highlight the key trends and challenges from the past year. These include data collated by Integrity360 from our internal tools and services, alongside major statistics curated from across the industry. Together, they paint a picture of an evolving threat landscape and offer valuable insights into where cyber security is headed in 2026. 

 

Every December, as workplaces wind down into a mix of end-of-year wrap-ups, office parties and questionable jumper choices, something else stirs in the digital world. Holiday music fills the radio, fairy lights appear across cities, and attackers quietly get to work. Because while most people are looking to switch off, the threat landscape absolutely isn’t. In fact, the festive period is often one of its busiest.