7 Cybersecurity Trends That Will Define 2026

If you’ve spent any time in cybersecurity or compliance over the past year, you’ve probably noticed the same thing everyone else has: Everything feels faster, louder, and a little more unhinged. Threats that used to take months to materialize now show up overnight. PCI rules that were once predictable suddenly demand year-round proof. And every CIO you talk to is juggling too many tools, too many vendors, and not nearly enough people to run any of it.

For businesses with dozens or hundreds of locations—retail chains, restaurants, hospitality groups, payment processors—it’s even more intense. One weak Wi-Fi router in a single store can put an entire brand on the front page. One missed patch can ripple across thousands of terminals. One vendor slip-up can shut down transactions from coast to coast.

2026 isn’t shaping up to be “more of the same.” It’s shaping up to be the year where the pace of change finally outruns the old way of doing cybersecurity and compliance. And the companies that stay resilient won’t necessarily be the ones spending the most; they’ll be the ones who can see what’s coming and adapt before it hits.

This blog breaks down the 7 trends we’re watching most closely across VikingCloud’s client environments—what’s accelerating, what’s shifting, and what your team needs to prepare.

1. AI-Driven Attacks Move from Experimental to Fully Autonomous

If 2024 was the year attackers flirted with AI, 2025 proved they could operationalize it.

Google’s Threat Intelligence Group published real examples of adversaries using AI to automate reconnaissance and produce convincing social-engineering content—no human operator required.

Darktrace’s State of AI Cybersecurity 2025 found that 74% of security leaders believe attacker-side AI is now materially changing the threat landscape.

And CrowdStrike’s 2024 threat report showed 75% of intrusions were malware-free—meaning attackers rely heavily on social engineering, stolen credentials, and lateral movement. AI supercharges all of that.

For multi-location businesses, here’s what that looks like in real environments:

• Hyper-personalized phishing at scale: Attackers use scraped store data, employee roles, regional details, and even local promotions to craft ultra-believable messages.
• Faster lateral movement: Once inside a single location, AI tools help attackers map internal networks and identify high-value systems far more quickly than before.
• Deepfake fraud becomes “normal”: Voice-cloning a district manager to request an override? That’s not science fiction anymore.

What does this mean for 2026?

This is the first time attackers can scale personalization at industrial levels. They no longer have to choose between volume and sophistication—they now achieve both simultaneously. For organizations with many locations, high staff turnover, and distributed payment environments, this creates a dramatically larger and more dynamic attack surface.

And the data backs it up: VikingCloud’s 2025 Cyber Threat Landscape Report found that in 2025, 71% of security leaders report rising attack frequency and 61% cite increasing severity. 58% of those attacked in 2025 suspect AI was used.

2. PCI DSS v4.x Enforcement Gets Real

PCI DSS v4.x isn’t a typical “version bump.” It’s a shift toward continuous evidence, continuous controls, and continuous accountability.

SecurityWeek described it as a movement toward an “always-on” security model rather than once-a-year box-checking.

And payment specialists have been warning that 2025–2026 is when enforcement tightens—not the rollout period.

Some of the biggest changes hitting multi-location merchants, processors, franchises, and hospitality brands include:

• Targeted Risk Analyses (TRAs) that require organizations to justify the frequency of controls—not just follow an annual schedule.
• Stricter MFA requirements for administrative access and remote access.
• More explicit segmentation expectations, especially for distributed POS environments.
• Deeper scrutiny on third-party service providers and the flow of cardholder data across cloud, storage devices, and vendor systems.

The real challenge isn’t just meeting the requirements—it’s meeting them consistently across hundreds or thousands of stores without drift, decentralization, or control gaps.

And we’re already seeing the impact: Across VikingCloud’s recent PCI engagements, Level 1 & 2 merchants are seeing a noticeable increase—often 25–40% more evidence—compared to PCI DSS v3.2.1 assessments.

Although we may technically be past the adoption deadline, 2026 will be the first real compliance reckoning.

3. Ransomware Shifts from Encryption to Operational Paralysis

Ransomware gangs have figured out that encrypting files is only one way to hold a business hostage. In 2025, we saw far more attention on disrupting operations, especially in industries that cannot afford downtime.

Microsoft’s 2025 Digital Defense Report noted that attackers increasingly hit supply chain vendors, edge devices, POS networks, and cloud intermediaries—not just servers.

For multi-location businesses, this trend is particularly dangerous:

• Attackers target the systems that keep stores open: POS terminals, payment gateways, shared service-layer tools, and vendor integrations.
• They prioritize availability, not just data: If 800 stores go down for six hours, the financial impact far exceeds the ransom amount.
• Modern ransomware doesn’t always encrypt first: It can disable, corrupt, interrupt, or overwhelm instead.

This shift forces organizations to view ransomware as a business-continuity threat—not just another data-security problem.

And the pressure is rising fast. VikingCloud’s 2025 hospitality report shows that when cyberattacks hit in summer 2025, hotels with MSSPs were 80%+ more likely to resolve incidents within 12 hours.

4. Third-Party Risk Becomes the Default Entry Point

No matter how robust your internal controls are, the weakest link is often still a vendor.

The World Economic Forum’s 2025 cyber insights report highlighted that attackers increasingly use AI to exploit vulnerabilities in third-party tools, integrations, and APIs because supply chains are sprawling and often less protected.

For distributed retail, hospitality, and payments environments:

• POS integrators, payment processors, and service providers often have privileged access to many customer networks.
• Store hardware vendors, cloud apps, and remote support tools expand the attack surface without expanding visibility.
• A breach in a single vendor can cascade into hundreds or thousands of customer locations.

2026 will be the year organizations are forced to map, monitor, validate, and govern vendor access far more tightly—not as best practice, but as a survival strategy.

And VikingCloud’s industry research validates this rising concern: In hospitality alone, 42% of hotel IT and cybersecurity leaders say vulnerabilities in third-party systems —like booking engines or guest management platforms—pose the greatest risk to their hotel this summer.

5. Tool Sprawl Finally Hits a Breaking Point

Over the last decade, security teams have purchased tools for every problem. In 2025, many realized they now have:

• Multiple scanners
• Multiple SIEMs
• Multiple monitoring solutions
• Multiple compliance dashboards
• Multiple endpoint agents
• Multiple reporting tools

…all running across hundreds of stores.

The result: Noise, fatigue, blind spots, cost, and wildly inconsistent coverage across locations.

2026 is shaping up to be the year organizations consolidate—not for budget reasons, but because fragmentation is directly causing breaches, audit failures, and delayed response times.

Teams aren’t looking for “more tools.” They’re looking for:

• Unified telemetry
• Fewer dashboards
• Consistent controls across every store
• Platforms that combine cyber + compliance, rather than split them

This shift isn't being driven by vendors—it’s being driven by operational pain inside multi-location businesses.

VikingCloud’s 2025 Cyber Threat Landscape Report reinforces this: 66% of organizations now augment internal security teams with MSSPs—to gain scale, consolidate tools, and regain control across sprawling, distributed environments. And 37% would prioritize a cybersecurity partner that enables them to see their threats in a single platform.

6. The Talent Gap Gets Worse—and the Work Shifts

Security teams everywhere are understaffed, overloaded, and losing people faster than they can replace them. But the bigger shift is what analysts are willing to do.

SOC analysts no longer want to spend their careers triaging alerts. They want strategic roles, purple-team exposure, automation, threat hunting, and architecture work.

This leaves a vacuum in:

• 24x7 coverage
• First-line triage
• Repetitive compliance evidence collection
• Low-level monitoring

Organizations are responding by leaning more heavily on managed services, automation platforms, and outsourced detection/response for the “always-on” work that internal staff no longer want.

The companies that adapt will keep their teams. Those who don’t will continue to lose them.

And the shift is measurable: In our 2025 Cyber Threat Landscape data, nearly a third (31%) of organizations still lack access to qualified talent, up from last year (19%).

7. Regulatory Pressure Tightens Everywhere

Cybersecurity regulations aren’t converging—they’re multiplying.

In 2026:

• The SEC, FTC, and state regulators in the U.S. are pushing deeper reporting, breach-disclosure, and security requirements.
• The EU’s NIS2 Directive and DORA start hitting operational deadlines with real teeth.
• APAC, LATAM, and Middle Eastern countries continue to intensify payment-security and vendor-security mandates.

For global brands, compliance is no longer something you “document.” It’s something you operate. Organizations with fragmented tools, inconsistent controls, and siloed evidence collection will struggle to meet rising expectations.

VikingCloud’s PCI and readiness assessments also reveal that segmentation, third-party visibility, and evidence collection are now the top drivers of audit delays and non-compliance findings—further evidence that regulatory pressure is colliding with operational complexity.

2026: What to Expect

2026 will not be a “business-as-usual” year for cybersecurity. The convergence of AI-driven attacks, continuous compliance regimes, operational disruption risk, and vendor complexity means that distributed, transaction-heavy organizations face a tipping point. The ones who will come out ahead are those who:

• Consolidate tools and telemetry rather than keep buying point solutions.
• Automate controls, detection, and response.
• Structure cyber investment around measurable outcomes (reduced downtime, fewer findings, and vendor-risk mitigated)—not just “we bought more tools.”
• Partner with platforms that unify cyber + compliance across locations, cloud, and transaction environments.

At VikingCloud, we’ve seen the data, the deployments, and the cost of being late. If your security program still treats AI-threats as speculative, compliance as a checkbox, and tools as a tower of disconnected investments, 2026 is your alarm bell. Turn cyber and compliance into measurable business enablers, not just cost centers.

Reach out to a VikingCloud expert to discuss your options and build a unified, outcomes-driven cyber strategy for 2026.

‍