Outperform In 2026 By Making Cyber Risk A Strategic Advantage
At the start of 2025, organizations experienced almost 2,000 cyberattacks per week, a 47% increase from the previous year. Worldwide losses from cybercrime are expected to hit $10.29 trillion, with ransomware responsible for 68% of reported incidents. It’s no surprise that cybersecurity has moved beyond IT. It is now a priority in boardrooms and impacts daily business decisions. The numbers show a truth that leaders need to accept. Cybersecurity is business security. It drives resilience, fuels performance and earns trust.
From IT Risk To Enterprise Resilience
When an iconic brand like Marks & Spencer loses hundreds of millions in trading profits to a cyberattack, attention very quickly moves from IT risk to business resilience. For today’s cybersecurity, it’s all about keeping the business running, protecting revenue and safeguarding the trust people put into the brand. Attackers only need one well‑timed hit, while defenders must deliver flawlessly every hour of the day. That imbalance isn’t going away, and leaders must address it with discipline instead of panic.
Trends Transforming Cyber Risk
Several powerful forces are reshaping today’s cyber threat landscape:
Industrialized Crime
Crime-as-a-Service has made it easier for people to launch cyberattacks. Cybercriminals can rent malware, buy stolen credentials and hire experts for every step of the process. This division of tasks has reduced costs and shortened the time required to execute attacks. It enables continuous and low-effort probing of businesses.
Personalized Social Engineering
With plenty of public data, deepfake voice tools and polished phishing templates, attackers create messages aimed at specific people. A busy CFO or accounts payable clerk may receive a lure that seems completely legitimate. It’s no wonder phishing remains the top threat, with attackers blasting out an incredible 4 billion malicious emails worldwide every single day.
AI In Play On Both Sides
Generative AI helps attackers break down language barriers and carry out personalized attacks on a large scale. Meanwhile, defenders use AI to sort alerts and spot unusual activities faster. But automation alone cannot fully eliminate cyber risk. It requires strong leadership, disciplined execution and human supervision to call the shots.
Geopolitical Turbulence
Espionage, disruption and profit often overlap when nations collaborate with criminal groups. The result is weakened supply chains and regional conflicts that spill over into global scams. Cybersecurity has to connect with strategy and geopolitics, since exposure depends on context.
Today’s Take On “Good”
Executives must redefine what effective cybersecurity leadership entails. Several practices stand out:
Put Cyber On The Business Agenda
Present it as a strategic risk to the business, not a technical update. Connect security conversations to strategy, operations, capital planning and geopolitical context. Make sure cyber risk is visible to the board risk committee, supported by consistent KPIs.
Assess Risk In A Financial Context
Assess “profit at risk” from cyber scenarios like operational downtime, data integrity issues, supplier disruptions and regulatory fines. Compare this with other strategic risks. Apply impact modeling to prioritize budgets for controls, insurance and resilience.
Strengthen Resilience Instincts
Practice responses with legal, operations, finance, communications and executive teams. Simulate tabletop scenarios including ransomware, SaaS breaches or supplier outages. Such exercises evaluate decision‑making, internal and external communication and the prioritization of recovery efforts.
Protect The Human Gateway
People still remain an easy target for attackers. Replace generic training with customized, role-specific instruction and timely prompts. Use strong authentication methods and limit elevated access to only necessary roles. Measure success by changed behaviors, not by the number of training modules finished.
Manage Third Parties As The Extended Enterprise
Highlight strategic suppliers, focusing on cloud services and managed service providers (MSPs). Include explicit security requirements and breach reporting deadlines in all contractual agreements. Establish an alternative plan if the provider experiences failure or downtime.
Use AI With Human Oversight
Automate triage and containment to minimize dwell time. Track risks such as false positives and evasion. Insist that vendors clearly document model origins and guarantee human authority to overrule automation.
Measure What Matters
Combine operational metrics, such as time to detect and patch cadence, with business measures, including systems at risk and revenue exposure. Report trend lines against stated risk appetite. Celebrate reducing risk, not just raising the number of alerts.
Thinking Like A Leader
Cybersecurity is no longer optional in the modern digital marketplace. The most effective leaders are guided by three principles:
1. Clarity Over Complexity
Attackers thrive on confusion. Streamline systems, cut down tech sprawl and unify controls. Make it easy to choose the secure option.
2. Speed Aligned With Control
Act quickly on critical areas like privileged access, identity hygiene and backup resilience, while reinforcing governance. But remember: unchecked speed increases exposure, and excessive control can still leave gaps.
3. The Power Of Resilience
Disruptions happen, but organizations that spot them fast communicate openly, and recovering with purpose can protect trust and gain true advantage.
Cybersecurity has become an essential management discipline. As the number of attacks increases, strong governance, clear actions and prioritizing people can shift the balance. Cybersecurity is not about removing all risk. It is about responding with resilience, clarity and purpose in a digital economy where trust is the most valuable asset.