Predicted trends for IT Management & Cyber Security in 2026

With 2026 just round the corner we thought it would be valuable to share some insight into the challenges that we believe organisations will need to be aware of in the coming year. We have been reflecting on how we have supported our clients and partners over the past 12 months.

2025 began as a year of cautious optimism, marked by rapid AI adoption and hybrid work normalisation. We have also seen a continued evolution of the cyber security battleground where cybercriminals and state-sponsored actors have made their presence known more significantly for both businesses and consumers.  2025 has been a remarkable year for high profile Cyber Security challenges that have even had a tangible impact on the GDP of the UK. Even as we write this today, we hear of a data breach being reported by the UK Government to the ICO, supposedly from a Chinese threat actor group.

It is fair to say that we have also seen more instability in the global landscape that has intensified over the past year, both commercially and politically.

In this post, we will cover the key security concerns that CyberPrae will be focussing on into 2026 and how we are working to support the people we work with manage these risks.

Agentic AI

It is difficult not to start with AI. The industry still seems to be in its infancy, yet the gains in sophistication and effectiveness are being made at a rapid curve. The next gen iteration being just around the corner.

Generative AI is shifting to agentic AI. Creating autonomous systems that make decisions without human oversight promises to revolutionize productivity. However, this is also a cybercriminal's dream. In 2026, we'll likely witness the first major public breach triggered by an unchecked AI agent, leading to employee scapegoating and regulatory scrutiny.

These agents, designed for speed, could inadvertently expose sensitive data, or execute flawed responses during customer interactions, cascading into widespread failures.

To help mitigate this risk implementing a "human-in-the-loop" protocol for high-stakes decisions will help reduce this risk and conducting regular audits to ensure security compliance is well maintained.

Ransomware 2026

CyberPrae have supported and recovered multiple business impacted by Ransomware in 2025 and in 2026 we expect to see that ransomware will be faster, more autonomous, and disruption-focused rather than purely payment-driven. Agentic AI which we covered previously will automate much of the attack chain such as reconnaissance, exploitation, data exfiltration, encryption, and even ransom negotiations, without human oversight. This will allow a boarder range of bad actors to execute sophisticated attacks via Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), enabling less-skilled operators. AI will accelerate compromises and enable personalized phishing/social engineering.

Successful defence hinges on proactive resilience. Work under the assumption that breaches will occur and prioritise rapid detection, containment, and recovery.

 Examples of protecting against these attacks include;

• Adopting zero-trust architectures to verify every access request, regardless of origin.

• Use AI for predictive threat detection, anomaly spotting, and automated response

• Conduct third-party risk assessments quarterly and segment your networks to contain breaches.

• Regularly test recovery plans—automation ensures rapid restore, reducing downtime even if data is stolen

Rising RAM pricing

The primary driver for this is the explosive AI server demand, causing manufacturers such as Micron to reallocate capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server DRAM from Consumer-grade RAM found in desktops and laptops. Which is creating a supply shortage and hence leading to increased prices. Also, NAND flash (affecting SSDs) faces similar trends, with prices already 20% higher than a few months ago.

The outlook for 2026 seems to indicate that prices will peak around Q3-Q4, so places orders for new hardware refreshes could help reduce costs. Another way to mitigate costs would be to consider lower RAM specs or choosing hardware which uses the older DDR4 spec, which is rising but not as aggressively as DDR5 RAM modules.

Secure by Design

There has been an increase in the discussion around the Cyber Security arms race in 2025 and we expect to see this intensify through 2026. In a landscape where spending on Cyber Security measures is ever increasing, but so are the number of successful breaches, conversation is moving towards better upstream design and management of corporate IT platforms. Not just adding more downstream measures that alert when things go wrong.

We firmly believe that a robust MDR / MXDR solution with a competent and always on Security Operations Centre is a vital measure for organisations to adopt in 2026. CyberPrae also need to ensure that the platforms, people, and processes that our clients and partners use (including their supply chains) are secure by design and tested properly. We use our real-world experience of Cyber Recovery to ensure that we plug the common gaps we see in this line of work.

Governance Risk and Compliance

Whilst the most common concern of the CIO or CISO is usually AI related, or connected to a more technical control or weakness, the primary concern of the CEO will likely be regulatory compliance and internal governance. This conversation shows no signs of slowing down in 2025.

We believe that we are only a few short steps away for standards such as Cyber Essentials being made mandatory, for insurance purposes and based on legislation.

The NCSC’s mission to better protect the UK supply chain is still very real, especially considering the point we made earlier about increasing global instability Organisations will need to have a very real plan to better manage their legislative and internal policy management, education, and training, and be ready to demonstrate that the measures they believe they have in place, actually exist in the real world.

CyberPrae have seen an evolution of our Cyber Essentials and ISO27001 and ISO9001 certification services into more real-world application and more robust testing under the same circumstances. We are actively working to deliver a service to manage the growing demand for ISO42001, the new key standard for the use of AI.