Top 10 ways to get breached in 2026

As organizations approach 2026, the likelihood of breaches remains high due to factors such as misconfigurations, social engineering, and non-human identities, compounded by the increasing complexity of environments and the adoption of AI technologies. Attackers are capitalizing on these vulnerabilities with faster, automated methods and by exploiting overlooked areas such as supply chain risks and adversary-in-the-middle attacks. The rise in AI and machine identities has expanded the attack surface, presenting new challenges like sprawl and denial-of-service attacks, while established threats like DNS cache poisoning and zero-day exploits continue to pose significant risks. Despite these challenges, organizations can mitigate risks by implementing robust security practices, such as using AI to enforce policy-as-code, employing phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication, managing machine identities, and maintaining resilience against denial-of-service attacks. The emphasis is on security measures that are identity-aware, contextual, continuous, and runtime-focused, with the goal of reducing the blast radius and detecting attacks before they can cause significant damage.