Cyber Risk in 2026: How geopolitics, supply chains, and shadow AI will test resilience

Geopolitical realignment, the weaponisation of critical supply chains, and the rapid diffusion of generative AI are redefining what it means to manage exposure. Welcome to 2026. The coming year will demand that organisations move from reactive security postures to proactive, intelligence-driven resilience, where cyber strategy, operational continuity, and geopolitical awareness are deeply intertwined.

Here are three key trends I believe will define the cybersecurity environment in 2026:

Prediction 1: Geopolitical friction will remain a multiplier of cyber-risk

Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed major tectonic movements in geopolitics: the war in Ukraine, heightened tensions in the Middle East between countries like Israel and Iran, and increased strategic rivalry in East Asia to name just a few. These physical conflicts bleed directly into the cyber domain, amplifying exposures for corporations and governments alike. I foresee this dynamic continuing into 2026 and evolving into new zones of pressure. In East Asia, for example, escalating state-backed cyber campaigns are already well-documented. On another axis, the Americas are increasingly drawn into friction as supply-chain chokepoints and rare-earth dependencies become strategic vulnerabilities.

The semiconductor industry sits at the center of this dynamic. Taiwan, the South China Sea, and China’s drive for self-sufficiency in rare-earth materials and advanced chip manufacturing are not hypothetical issues, they are active fault lines in the global economy. Any escalation in this region could reverberate across the entire technology ecosystem, from chip fabrication to AI model development.

For global enterprises, these developments underscore a fundamental truth: geopolitical volatility is not merely an external factor; it’s an embedded component of cyber risk itself. Effective exposure management requires integrating geopolitical intelligence into cyber-resilience planning. This means continuously mapping dependencies, reassessing vendor footprints, and anticipating how shifting alliances or sanctions might trigger new threat campaigns.

Prediction 2: Shipping and maritime logistics will become prime targets

As global friction intensifies, the maritime industry (the linchpin of international trade) faces mounting cyber-risk. In August 2024, the Port of Seattle identified a cyberattack that led to system outages and the disclosure of personal data for some 90,000 individuals.The Coast Guard Cyber Command has reported a record number of maritime cyber missions responding to incidents across critical shipping infrastructure.

Shipping networks combine legacy systems, operational-technology dependencies, and global data connectivity, creating high-impact opportunities for attackers. As sanctions, trade-rerouting and regional conflicts reshape maritime routes through the Suez Canal, the South China Sea and the North Atlantic, threat actors are likely to increase campaigns targeting logistics visibility, port operations and vessel communications.

For 2026, maritime cyber-resilience will hinge on real-time monitoring, segmentation of operational networks and intelligence-driven exposure management that links physical and digital risks.

Prediction 3: Shadow AI will emerge as the next unmanaged risk surface

Finally, as enterprises continue to rush to harness generative AI, many are discovering that their greatest risk may lie not in external attacks but in potential exposures due to ungoverned internal use. Employees are increasingly adopting personal or unvetted AI tools to accelerate daily tasks, introducing the idea of shadow AI. Without clear policies on data access, model usage, and output validation, sensitive information can easily be exposed or misused.

In their recent AI Security Benchmark Survey, KPMG found that a significant portion of organisations lack defined AI vulnerability processes, incident-response playbooks or resilience plans. In 2026, this unmanaged layer will grow as generative models become embedded in productivity platforms and code environments. In addition, while existing policies have been well developed over the past decade to ensure that wider technologies and tools are well-integrated and subject to approval processes, the sheer volume of the logs creates a serious visibility challenge, taking many companies back to square one in regards to shadow IT.

Forward-looking organisations will respond by embedding AI-governance controls into existing cyber and data-protection programs, treating model access, prompt integrity, and data lineage as core exposure-management priorities.

Translating awareness into action

Whether the catalyst is geopolitical friction, attacks on global shipping routes, or the unchecked growth of shadow AI, the common thread is exposure management, understanding where risk accumulates and responding with agility. Those that integrate geopolitical, operational, and digital intelligence into a unified resilience strategy will be best positioned to navigate the uncertainty of 2026.

Authored by Yuval Wollman, President – CyberProof, UST