Cary, NC, Nov. 06, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- INE’s 2026 cybersecurity forecast highlights the critical shifts transforming enterprise defense and underscores the urgent need for attack surface management and security team readiness across every sector.
The coming year will test the limits of digital resilience. Driven by rapid cloud migration, hybrid infrastructure models, and the proliferation of AI-enabled tools, enterprises are contending with emerging cybersecurity threats that evolve faster than their defense frameworks. INE’s forecast reveals the top attack surface trends and the preparation strategies security leaders must prioritize to maintain operational continuity and trust.
An Era of Expanding Digital Exposure
According to TechTarget, the attack surface (defined as every possible point of unauthorized access to a system) has grown by more than 67% since 2022. This expansion is fueled by four key forces:
- Hybrid Cloud Complexity: As organizations balance on-premises systems with multi-cloud architectures, visibility gaps and inconsistent controls have created new vulnerabilities. Hybrid cloud security risks are now among the most critical threat vectors in enterprise environments.
- Third-Party and Supply Chain Expansion: The average enterprise depends on over 2,000 third-party applications and APIs. Without continuous external asset visibility, organizations remain blind to risks beyond their firewall.
- Shadow IT and Workforce Decentralization: The rise of remote collaboration tools, edge devices, and distributed endpoints has further fragmented traditional perimeter defenses.
- Proliferation of AI-Enabled Systems: While AI-driven cyber attacks increase the sophistication of threats, the rapid deployment of AI-enabled applications, models, and APIs across organizations introduces new, often unmonitored digital assets, directly expanding the attack surface.
“These forces are transforming how security teams approach risk management,” said Alexis Ahmed, Red Team Instructor at INE. “Attack surface management is no longer a periodic audit. It’s a continuous, always-on discipline. Organizations must identify, monitor, and remediate exposures in real time to keep pace with an expanding threat landscape.”
Key Forecast Insights for 2026
The 2026 Cybersecurity Forecast outlines six trends that will define the next phase of enterprise defense:
- Proactive Exposure Management Will Replace Reactive Defense.
CISOs will prioritize exposure management in cybersecurity, leveraging continuous discovery and automated remediation to neutralize threats before they escalate.
- Zero Trust Becomes the Standard, Not the Strategy.
The adoption of Zero Trust Security Strategy frameworks will accelerate as enterprises unify identity, device, and application control under adaptive policies. By 2026, zero trust will evolve from concept to configuration, integrated directly into platform architecture.
- Attack Surface Reduction Becomes Quantifiable.
Security leaders will begin benchmarking success by measuring “attack surface reduction” metrics, linking vulnerability closure to business resilience outcomes.
- Cloud-Native Security Shifts to Multi-Plane Defense.
Traditional cloud security challenges, such as misconfiguration and privilege sprawl, will expand to include data lineage tracking and container runtime protection across multiple clouds.
- AI Governance Emerges as a Core Security Pillar.
As AI-driven cyber attacks become more sophisticated, the same technology will be leveraged for predictive defense and autonomous response. Enterprises will establish governance frameworks to audit AI models and ensure ethical resilience.
- Readiness Training Defines Competitive Advantage.
The most successful organizations will be those that embed security team readiness into their operational DNA. Ongoing, scenario-based training focusing on detection, incident response, and red team simulations will close the skill gap that currently limits many SOCs.
Preparing for the Threat Landscape of 2026
The threat landscape of 2026 will be defined not by the number of attacks, but by the sophistication of interconnected risks. Traditional defensive hierarchies like firewalls, SIEMs, and compliance checklists are giving way to unified, intelligence-driven ecosystems.
“Cybersecurity is shifting from protection to prediction,” added Ahmed. “Organizations that integrate threat intelligence with attack surface visibility will have the agility to adapt faster than their adversaries. Those that don’t will face compounding vulnerabilities across every layer of their digital ecosystem.”
INE’s experts emphasize that cloud, identity, and exposure management will converge into a single operational model by late 2026. This convergence will demand new skill sets, including cross-disciplinary fluency between network engineering, cloud architecture, and behavioral analytics.
Building Collaborative Defenders for the Future
The skills required to defend tomorrow’s networks are no longer siloed. Today’s cybersecurity resilience depends on collaboration across disciplines — a reality explored in INE’s Wired Together: The Case for Cross-Training in Networking and Cybersecurity.
Based on a global survey of nearly 1,000 IT and security professionals, the report reveals how organizations are breaking down barriers between networking and cybersecurity to stay ahead of complex, converging threats. Readers will learn how to:
→ Build integrated, cross-functional teams
→ Embed security into network design and operations
→ Adapt to the new era of network-security convergence
Download Wired Together to learn why the future of defense depends on unified expertise.
About INE Security
INE Security is the award-winning, premier provider of online networking and cybersecurity training and certification, trusted by Fortune 500 companies and IT professionals around the globe. Leveraging a state-of-the-art hands-on lab platform, advanced technologies, a global video distribution network, and instruction from world-class experts, INE Security sets the standard for high-impact, career-advancing technical education.
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Kim Lucht INE press@ine.com
