AI, hacktivists drive heightened cyber threats in 2026

Security experts warn that 2026 will see a sharp rise in sophisticated cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure and governments, fueled by artificial intelligence and expanding threat actor groups, according to IT Brief United Kingdom.

A recent multinational advisory highlighted how pro-Russia hacktivists are now breaching operational technology in sectors like energy and water, a shift from solely state-sponsored campaigns to include criminal and hacktivist opportunists.

NCC Group's Floris Dankaart noted this broad targeting means "All major threat actor categories have bridged the IT-OT gap," with exposed remote access tools like VNC providing crude but dangerous entry points that can disable safety mechanisms.

Concurrently, AI is expected to escalate cyber-enabled fraud through deepfakes and automation, with Infoblox's John Wojcik predicting a "significant acceleration" in these attacks targeting regions like Australia.

In response, vendors forecast a defensive pivot toward human-supervised AI, greater threat intelligence sharing, and platform consolidation. SentinelOne's Gregor Steward emphasized that defense against threats like deepfakes requires "a fundamentally different approach to identity verification," moving beyond single-layer solutions.