Expert Panel: Cyber Ready for 2026, Or Just Confident on Paper?

Many organizations entering 2026 do not feel they have fallen behind in their overall cyber-readiness. In fact, several believe they are doing everything right.  

They now have a wide range of new tools, greater visibility into how their systems operate, an almost endless array of metrics to measure performance, and more compliance certifications than ever before.  With all of this comes a great deal of confidence.  

Confidence, however, as this panel will demonstrate, is often used as a substitute for actual capability. 

The same pattern of overestimating one’s cyber-readiness continues across various sectors and industries. Security estates that appear to be robust in design and implementation, but fail to effectively translate investments into speed, clarity, and action when needed most are commonplace.  

The tool stacks that these organizations use lack cohesion. Their processes exist, but they deteriorate quickly under high pressure. Leadership teams are generally unprepared for the time when decisions, and not the displays provided through dashboards, ultimately determine success. 

This panel examines where cyber-readiness has been overestimated in 2026, from assessing technological maturity based on tools to implementing controls that provide a sense of assurance rather than reducing the risks associated with those controls. Furthermore, it encourages organizations to reevaluate what cyber-readiness really means within a rapidly changing environment, where social engineering, identity theft, cloud-based applications, artificial intelligence-accelerated attacks, and constant changes make it difficult to maintain even a basic level of preparedness. 

In 2026, the largest threat may not be under-preparation, but thinking you are prepared when you are not. 

Let’s hear what the experts have to say. 

“Are organizations overestimating their cyber readiness for 2026? I know you expect me (and every other cybersecurity vendor) to say “Absolutely, yes, now buy this thing.” Still, in reality, I think the answer is “No, not really,” says Rik Ferguson, Vice President of Security Intelligence at Forescout. “Most organizations have more capability than their risk reporting and operating model currently lets them realize, simply because they haven’t built coherence into their tool stack. The capabilities don’t show up as confidence, speed, or consistent outcomes.” 

Separate Instruments in an Orchestra with No Conductor 

Ferguson says most businesses have spent years investing in security tooling, EDR, XDR, SIEM, vulnerability management, identity controls, and cloud security tooling; it’s all there in some form.  

“Cybersecurity isn’t the new kid on the block anymore. The problem is that these tools often operate like separate instruments in an orchestra with no conductor. You get overlapping coverage, duplicated alerts, inconsistent asset naming, conflicting severity scores, and gaps exactly where the environment is messiest, unmanaged devices, third parties, remote sites, and IoT/OT.” 

He says that’s where “readiness” gets misread. “Boards and execs see a large toolset and assume ‘we’re covered.” Security teams use the same toolset and feel overwhelmed because too much of their time is spent reconciling data rather than reducing risk. If there is one single area that gets overestimated, it’s usually process. The playbooks and policies exist, but they don’t reliably translate into enforcement across the real, living estate.” 

Looking Complete on Paper, Degrading in Execution 

The controls that create the biggest false sense of confidence are the ones that look complete on paper but degrade in execution, Ferguson adds. “Critical” alerts that are only critical because a rule says so, vulnerability programs that find issues but can’t drive remediation at pace, Zero Trust initiatives that stall because the organization can’t consistently answer basic questions, like “what is on my network, who owns it, and what is it allowed to do?” 

For him, the tweak that will move the needle in 2026 is coherence. “A way to unify security telemetry and asset intelligence in real time, de-duplicate and sanity-check alerts, join the dots into actionable events, and translate policy into enforcement, segmentation, access decisions, quarantine, and compensating controls. Done well, this enables risk management that actually works, turning fragmented telemetry into a defensible, real-time picture of exposure and control effectiveness so that the organization can make better decisions faster.” 

Continuous Asset Truth Tied to Enforcement and Response 

Ferguson advises, “If you pick one readiness priority for 2026, make it continuous asset truth tied directly to enforcement and response. Not more data, not more point solutions. Better decisions, faster containment, and fewer surprises when the environment changes.”  

“Last year I began interviewing CISOs across sectors about their cyber readiness and one pattern emerged again and again – organizations consistently misjudge where their real cyber risk sits,” adds Jane Frankland MBE, CEO at KnewStart. 

“This isn’t because they’re careless. Rather, it’s because maturity is often assessed through the wrong lens.” 

It’s Rarely a Missing Tool that Causes Failure 

The area most organizations overestimate is technology, she says. “Boards and executives can point to sophisticated tooling, dashboards, and investment figures and conclude they’re “mature.” In contrast, people and process maturity are far harder to measure and far less comfortable to interrogate. Technology feels tangible and reassuring; human judgment, decision authority, and organizational behavior under pressure do not. Yet when incidents occur, it’s rarely a missing tool that causes failure.” 

Instead, it’s confusion over who decides, delays caused by fear or misalignment, and processes that look good on paper but collapse under stress.  

She says this leads directly to the second problem: investments that create a false sense of confidence. “Advanced detection platforms, AI-driven monitoring, and beautifully produced board reports often signal control without guaranteeing resilience. Security awareness training can also fall into this category when it focuses on compliance rather than behavior. Organizations believe they’re “covered” because boxes are ticked, while gaps in decision-making authority, escalation paths, and cultural truth-telling remain unaddressed. These controls don’t fail technically. Rather, they fail organizationally.” 

Decision Readiness at Leadership Level 

If businesses had to focus on just one readiness priority in 2026, Frankland says it should be decision readiness at the leadership level rather than more tools or more frameworks. “Decision readiness means ensuring that when systems fail, leaders know who has authority, what trade-offs are acceptable, how quickly decisions must be made, and how the organization continues operating while those decisions are taken. It also means creating a culture where bad news travels fast, without fear, and where cyber incidents are treated as business survivability events, not technical anomalies.” 

Frankland adds that if you look at this through a Maslow-inspired cyber lens, many companies start at the middle or top of the hierarchy – at governance, controls, and defense – while neglecting the foundational layers of leadership, people, and culture. “Resilience collapses upward when those foundations are weak. In 2026, the organizations that reduce risk most effectively will be those that stop asking, “Are we secure?” and start asking, “Are we ready to decide when security fails?”  

Not a Destination, a Moving Target 

Chloe Messdaghi, Founder & Principal Advisor at Thornbridge Advisory, says in her experiences, advising leadership teams, investors, and institutions on digital risk, governance, and resilience, one thing is abundantly clear: cyber readiness is not a single destination — it’s a moving target. 

“As threats evolve faster than institutions can reconfigure their defenses, too many organizations are measuring preparedness by what they own, not what they can reliably operationalize when it really matters. That gap between perception and reality creates a very real risk.” 

She says organizations most frequently overestimate technology (the shiny tools) before they critically assess the people and processes needed to make those tools effective.  

• Deploying an advanced platform or adopting a next-gen endpoint control often feels like doing cybersecurity. Still, without the human in the loop, governance alignment, and resilient processes behind them, those tools become brittle and ineffective.  

• Technology can give a false sense of control. Still, it does not create situational resilience unless it’s integrated into clear decision pathways, exercised through realistic scenarios, and supported by people who know when and how to act under stress.  

Underestimating the Complexity of Human Behavior 

“At the same time, I’ve seen organizations underestimate the complexity of human behavior in security, not just in security teams, but across the entire workforce. Security isn’t “installed”,  it’s activated through adaptive processes and continuous learning. In short: technology gets over-credited; people and processes get under-invested.” 

There are a few patterns Messdaghi sees again and again that inflate confidence but don’t necessarily reduce risk:  

Compliance check-boxes:  Passing an audit or procuring compliance certificates can feel like a win, but compliance does not equal resilience. You can pass a checklist and still have systemic gaps in threat detection, incident response, or governance alignment.  

Significant tool investments without context:  Expensive platforms can be powerful, but without clear use cases, tailored policies, and measurable outcomes, they sit idle or misunderstood. Tools should augment strategy, not replace it.  

Siloed metrics: Security teams often measure what’s easy, such as patch rates, alert counts, and vulnerability scores,  rather than what’s meaningful to mission continuity, such as dwell time, response orchestration success, and cross-domain coordination.  

“This pattern, focusing on the visible, measurable, and outsourced, can give leadership the perception of readiness while leaving adaptive risk management unexamined.” 

Focus on Adaptive Readiness 

She advises companies to focus on adaptive readiness,  not static security posture. “Adaptive readiness means investing in people, processes, and strategic governance capabilities that allow an organization to respond, learn, and evolve as threats change. It’s not a single tool; it’s the capacity to:  

• Anticipate emerging threat vectors and align defenses  

• Exercise response plans under real conditions  

• Empower cross-functional teams to make confident, rapid decisions  

• Integrate security goals into broader institutional resilience strategies  

In practice, this could look like:  

• Table-top exercises that test not just IT systems but enterprise decision-making under cyber duress  

• Governance frameworks that elevate security to board-level risk ownership  

• Continuous training combined with human factors research to reduce susceptibility to social engineering  

Messdaghi says the businesses that will reduce risk most effectively in 2026 are those that can adapt in real time, not those that check every technology purchase off a spreadsheet. “Too many organizations treat cybersecurity like a factory output, but security is a living discipline. Real readiness is not measured by what you’ve bought, but by how you can operate under uncertainty. The gap between perception and reality isn’t getting smaller, unless we learn to center our investments on adaptability, coordination, and sustained operational insight.” 

Follow the Pivot

“My catchphrase for 2026 is follow the pivot, adds Ian Thornton-Trump, CISO at Inversion6 UK.  

“What we’ve seen from 2024 to 2025 is a change in threat actor behavior. So let’s set aside nation-state attacks for now. But the common denominator in the successful cyberattacks that we’ve seen so far is social engineering, specifically to gain access to identity and access management of users, particularly privileged ones, so that we can expect that kind of attack.” 

He says Scattered Spider and other organizations had a tremendous success exploiting that particular avenue. “So, either impersonating a supply chain partner, especially an IT supply chain partner, but also impersonating the IT adjacent folks, the folks that work with Workday, the folks that work with ERP, the folks that work with Salesforce, are great examples of IT adjacent administrators who these threat actors then target.” 

We’re Great at the Endpoint Now 

“So the big news for organizations is that yes, we’ve gotten good, and really, actually, I would say the big victory story is we’re great at endpoint now, adds Thornton-Trump. “The problem is the bad guys are using endpoint, spending very little time on it, and moving into those cloud and cloud hosting environments to wreak havoc absolutely.” 

His key takeaways are: listen, tighten up the identity and access management policies, especially when it comes to processes that could defeat existing cybersecurity controls, like SMS-based 2FA. “Make sure you know who you’re dealing with. In terms of the supply chain, rapidly react to announcements on the common exploit or known exploit vulnerability list, also known as the Kev from CISA, and apply those patches as quickly as possible. Keep in mind that when it gets on the Kev, it’s got to be vetted by government officials, and it has to be real.” 

Oops, We Did It Again 

He says businesses are losing valuable time. Sometimes it’s even better to get a heads up, especially directly from the vendor saying, “Oops, we did it again. We’ve got a problem, and here’s the short-term remediation until we can get a patch out to you.” So, really, it’s about a heads up, understanding what you have in your environment, and understanding that you’ve got to move pretty quickly when CVEs come out that everyone in the community is talking about as being pretty devastating.” 

Finally, Thornton-Trump says this is about isolating the hosting environments and adding additional cybersecurity controls to cloud-based environments, such as whitelisting or limiting access to your cloud and hosting infrastructure to only specific IP addresses. “If that means segregating, using micro segregation techniques to protect the hosted environment and make it difficult via jump host architecture, going all the way back to the OT days to gain access to those hosting environments.”  

It’s Going to be a Wild 2026 

For him, it’s really about building out the defense and depth of the hosting and cloud-based services that IT is responsible for, and it’s a mandate for IT security to monitor the identity and access management piece closely. “Conditional access is a huge security control that can really make a difference and really detect an attack really early in that detection phase, so that you can mitigate it with a pathwork reset or even just turning off that user completely if you think it’s compromised.” 

So that’s kind of all I have other than to say it’s going to be a wild 2026. Most of the threat actors  I’ve been tracking will continue to invest in ransomware-as-a-service and malware. I think one of the key takeaways is, listen, malware created by AI or malware created by humans really is and acts the same way because it’s malware, right?” 

Thornton-Trump says it shouldn’t come as a big surprise. “I think don’t fall for the hype around AI malware being the end of the universe. Focus on the basics, focus on detection and response, and don’t get too hung up on the origins of that particular malware. Malware from five years ago is just as capable of doing damage to your business as malware from yesterday.”  

Confidence Driven by Tools 

Gary Hibberd, Fellow of the CIISec, comments: “I believe organizations are overestimating their cyber readiness for 2026, largely because confidence is being driven by tools purchased rather than capabilities proven.  As I keep on saying, in cybersecurity we need more leaders, not technicians and technology! Having more tools does not make it more secure. In fact, this is the paradox. More technology means we have more systems to maintain, meaning we have more gaps (such as vulnerabilities) that are there to be exploited.” 

He says the most overestimated area of maturity is people, closely followed by processes. “Technology is tangible and easy to point to; people and behaviors are not. Boards often assume that annual training, a phishing simulation, or an acceptable use policy equals a cyber-aware workforce. In reality, staff are overwhelmed, security messages are forgotten, and risky workarounds become normalized. Processes suffer the same fate: incident response plans, risk registers, and supplier assessments may exist on paper but are rarely rehearsed, tested under pressure, or updated to reflect real-world threats. Even though I’m a big advocate of security control sets like CE, CE+, NIST, and management systems like ISO 27001, 42001, etc, it needs to be said that having a certificate on your wall does NOT make you secure.” 

A Dangerous Illusion of Safety 

Technical security investments create a dangerous illusion of safety, Hibberd adds. “SIEMs, EDR platforms, and AI-driven threat detection tools are common examples. These technologies are powerful, but without skilled monitoring, tuning, and response, they simply generate noise. Certifications and compliance frameworks can also mislead – As I said, passing an audit does not mean the organization is secure and that it can detect, respond to, or recover from an actual attack. Cyber insurance is another false comfort; it transfers financial risk but does nothing to prevent operational disruption or reputational damage.” 

For Hibberd, if organizations could focus on one readiness priority for 2026, it should be operational resilience (notice I have dropped the word ‘cyber’). Dropping the word cyber shifts the focus away from the IT function and technology and onto people and processes. Specifically, the ability to detect incidents quickly, respond effectively, and recover faster. This means realistic incident response testing, clear decision-making authority, and practiced communication plans – all of which focus on people at every level of the organization. 

“Let’s be clear: Attacks are (increasingly) inevitable; prolonged outages and poor response are not. Organizations that accept this reality and prepare accordingly will dramatically reduce the impact on their people and their business.” 

Beware of ‘Tool Rich’ and ‘Process Poor’ 

Organizations may still overestimate their technology maturity, says Ross Moore, Information Security Researcher. “Having the right tools – EDR, SIEM, threat intel feeds – doesn’t equate to proper information security. Tech only delivers value if the people and processes are mature enough to use it effectively.  

Companies need to beware of being ‘tool-rich and process-poor.’ Checking all the boxes while alerts are unreviewed or response playbooks remain untested leads to problems. Measuring technology is easy; measuring a team’s actual knowledge and ability to act in an incident – that’s the more realistic metric, and is more difficult but more important to measure.” 

A False Sense of Confidence 

One area Moore says is in the “false sense of confidence” arena comes from tools that promise visibility or automation. Things like SIEM platforms, threat intel feeds, or fancy dashboards can lull leaders into thinking,  

“We’ve got eyes everywhere!’ If no one’s actually tuning tools, validating and investigating alerts and anomalies, it’s just data – not security. Another area is MFA. A company may roll out MFA and declare victory, but if it’s unevenly applied or misconfigured, that’s an exposed attack surface. Compliance frameworks can be misleading. They look great on that certificate or report, and can bring in sales, and are a great foundation and investment – but that doesn’t mean a team can detect or respond to a breach tomorrow. Don’t focus on the foundation while neglecting the daily maintenance.” 

Moore stresses communication. “Talk to each other about everything. Things happen, alerts confuse, people take vacations, employees leave, creating gaps, and new employees don’t know what to do. Build a culture where everyone has open and feasible comms channels to report anomalies, suspicions, and attacks.” 

Deployment of Advanced Tools ≠ Hardened Security Posture 

Dimitris Georgiou, CSO, Alphabit Cybersecurity SA, says organizations consistently overestimate their technology maturity while materially underinvesting in the corresponding people and process capabilities.  

“The accelerated adoption of agentic AI and autonomous security platforms has produced a superficial sense of resilience. Executive leadership often equates the deployment of advanced tools with a hardened security posture. In practice, however, while tooling sophistication has advanced rapidly, the governance structures, validation processes, and skilled personnel required to manage these systems have not progressed at the same rate.” 

Georgiou says this imbalance has created what can be described as a “junior paradox” within the security workforce: extensive automation at Tier-1 and Tier-2 functions, coupled with a critical shortage of senior experts capable of exercising strategic judgment where artificial intelligence falls short. “A genuinely mature organization in 2026 is not defined by its adoption of the latest AI capabilities, but by its ability to maintain an effective human-in-the-loop model – one in which personnel are trained to identify model poisoning, algorithmic drift, and systemic decision-making failures.” 

Reassurance Rather Than Meaningful Risk Mitigation 

He says several entrenched security controls now function primarily as reassurance mechanisms rather than meaningful risk mitigations: 

• Conventional Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), such as Push-based and SMS-based MFA mechanisms, is increasingly ineffective against modern attack techniques, including AI-enabled session hijacking and real-time deepfake-assisted social engineering. Continued reliance on these controls fosters a false sense of assurance while leaving authentication workflows materially exposed.  

• Static Compliance Assessments and Penetration Testing in the form of Point-in-time assessments – whether conducted annually or quarterly – are misaligned with today’s threat environment. Initial Access Brokers and autonomous malware frameworks can discover, exploit, and monetize vulnerabilities within minutes. Confidence derived from a months-old audit or penetration test provides little protection against continuously evolving exposure.  

• Fragmented Cloud Security Monitoring that many organizations depend on features high-level dashboards and configuration-based indicators that report a nominally “healthy” cloud posture. These tools frequently fail to surface the most consequential risk vector of 2026: identity sprawl. Non-Human-Identities in the form of unmanaged service accounts, automation identities, and AI agents often retain broad administrative privileges while remaining invisible to traditional alerting mechanisms.  

Zero Trust Emphasizing Non-Human Identities 

Georgiou believes that if organizations can prioritize only one strategic initiative, it should be an identity-centric Zero Trust strategy with explicit emphasis on non-human identities (NHIs). “The traditional perimeter model is no longer viable; identity has become the primary control plane. Service accounts, API keys, and autonomous AI agents now outnumber human users by an estimated ratio of 45:1. These identities typically bypass MFA, rarely rotate credentials, and frequently hold persistent, high-impact privileges – enabling lateral movement across environments without human interaction.” 

He says in 2026, the path of least resistance for adversaries is no longer a human employee but an overlooked, over-privileged machine identity. “Establishing robust Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) capabilities for non-human entities represents the most effective means of disrupting the industrialized cybercrime ecosystem that defines the current threat landscape.”  

Organizations Tend to Overestimate Maturity 

Panagiotis Soulos, Information Security GRC Senior Manager, Steelmet for Viohalco Companies, adds that, as we move into 2026, many organizations are expressing growing confidence in their cybersecurity posture. “Yet this confidence is often misplaced. Cyber readiness is not defined by the volume of tools deployed or frameworks adopted, but by how effectively people, processes, and technology work together under real-world pressure. In practice, organizations tend to overestimate maturity across all three areas—though for different reasons.” 

He says people are the most frequently overestimated dimension. “Many organizations equate security awareness training with behavioral change. Annual e‑learning modules and phishing simulations may improve metrics, but they rarely translate into sustained accountability, decision-making under stress, or security-aware leadership. Skills and expert shortages, role confusion between IT, security, and risk functions, and limited board-level cyber literacy further widen the gap between perceived and actual readiness.” 

The Illusion of Control 

Soulos says processes are another blind spot. “The existence of policies, incident response plans, and risk registers is often mistaken for operational maturity. In reality, many processes are outdated, not properly tested, or disconnected from business-critical workflows. Tabletop exercises may be infrequent or overly scripted, and third-party risk processes may focus on compliance artifacts rather than systemic exposure. This creates the illusion of control while leaving organizations unprepared for fast-moving, cross-domain attacks.” 

Technology, while often the most visible investment, Soulos adds, can create the strongest false sense of confidence. “Advanced tools (such as SIEM, EDR, or SASE platforms) are powerful but only when properly integrated, tuned, and governed. Tool sprawl, alert fatigue, poor data quality, and lack of ownership frequently undermine their effectiveness. “Technology without mature operational processes and skilled teams simply shifts risk rather than reducing it.” 

Cyber Resilience Through Integrated Governance 

If organizations had to focus on one priority in 2026, Soulos says it should be cyber resilience through integrated governance. “This means aligning business objectives, risk appetite, security operations, and executive oversight into a single, continuously tested capability. Resilience shifts the purpose from compliance to withstanding, responding, and recovering from a disruption.” 

Ultimately, Soulos says cyber readiness is not a destination but a discipline. “Organizations that recognize this (and invest accordingly) will be far better positioned to manage risk in an increasingly hostile threat landscape.”