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AI has the potential to shift the balance towards defenders, according to Akshay Joshi, Head of the Centre for Cybersecurity, at the Davos-based World Economic Forum (WEF). He said: โOrganizations that treat it as a strategic capability, rather than a standalone tool, will be better placed to turn growing cyber risk into resilience and competitive advantage.โ
The Forumโs 2026 edition of Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity: Balancing Risks and Rewards, covers how businesses are deploying AI for defence in practice. As attack surfaces expand to include hundreds of thousands of internet-facing assets, the scale and complexity of cyber risk are increasing the WEF finds. Among the examples featured, the report, with the audit and advisory firm KPMG, quotes a 25 per cent increase in operational efficiency in threat intelligence, when the consulting firm Accenture cut security analysis time in more than 100,000 internet-facing sites from 15 minutes to under one minute, and IBMโs ATOM platform helps scale global 24×7 threat detection and response, automating more than 850 analyst hours a month and cutting end-to-end investigation time by 37pc.
“Attackers are moving faster and at greater scale than ever before. This report is a call to action for organizations to match that pace, with AI as a force multiplier for cyber defence,” said Laurent Gobbi, Partner, Global Head of Cyber and Tech Risk, KPMG.
The report stresses that AIโs value in cyber lies in augmenting human expertise, accelerating decisions and strengthening resilience, rather than automation alone.
Social engineering
Survey
Business respondents to a quarterly global survey by KPMG about a variety of AI topics cited a skills gap and risks such as data privacy and cybersecurity as the biggest barriers to demonstrating AIโrelated return on investment (cited by 46pc). The firm found businesses are moving from early productivity tools such as Microsoft Copilot to more advanced AI agents that automate endโtoโend processes. But there is still a mixed picture in terms of how far along businesses are on their ‘AI journeys’.
Book
OPSWAT founder and CEO Benny Czarny has released his first book on Amazonย andย Blurb. โCybersecurity Upside Downโ, calling for a rethink of assumptions. He says: โFor years the cybersecurity industry tried to achieve prevention through detection which worked for a time. But that model is broken. Attackers can now generate new threats faster than we can detect them, and AI is accelerating the problem.โ
CIO priority
AI has become a priority for CIOs (chief information officers), according to a vendorโs survey. Over a quarter reported AI as a significant source of risk, placing it on par with older attack vectors such as malware, ransomware and phishing. Bob Bailkoski, Global CEO of Logicalis Group, said: “AI is a powerful force in cybersecurity, but without the right skills and governance, it can create more vulnerabilities than protection. CIOs have the challenging task of defending their organisations against AI-driven threats, but also from the risks posed by the very AI tools meant to safeguard them.โ
Survey
A study of IT decision-makers from the identity security product firm SailPoint points to risky data sharing practices in UK businesses. Some two thirds (67pc) surveyed canโt account for whether staff are sharing information through their own secure AI platforms or gated large language models. Mark McClain, CEO and Founder at SailPoint, said: ย โAI tools can enhance productivity, but they also create serious risk when theyย operateย outside anย organisationโsย visibility and governance. When sensitive information is entered into unapproved models, it can be exposed, mishandled, or even amplified through errors and hallucinations. As use of AI systems becomes more widespread, the situation is only going to get more out of control ifย organisationsย fail toย put the right guardrails in place โ compounded by other tools flying under the radar.
โOrganisations need to stop workarounds and regain control. That takes a combination of skills and awareness, but it also fundamentally boils down to a challenge around identity. Organisations need a real-time view of who, or what, is accessing what data, from which devices, and where itโs being shared. Technology can provide that critical context, giving organisations visibility to close security gaps and strengthen compliance. This means businesses can be confident that tools designed to boost productivity wonโt set them back by introducing unnecessary risk.โ
Malware families
In 2025, Zimperiumโs zLabs team tracked 34 active malware families targeting 1,243 financial institutions across 90 countries. Android malware-driven financial transactions increased 67 per cent year-over-year. What the research revealed was not a collection of isolated incidents, according to the firm; these were sophisticated, scalable campaigns, continuously evolving to bypass app security controls and exploit the institutions and customers that depend on them. Krishna Vishnubhotla, Vice President of Product Strategy at Zimperium, a mobile application security product company, said: “Mobile banking malware has come a long way from simply stealing passwords. Today it can take full control of a customer’s device. What used to take highly skilled attackers weeks to build can now be put together and launched in days, and AI is making that even faster. The gap between what attackers can do and what defenders can keep up with has never been this wide. Mobile app security has to be where fraud prevention starts.
โWhat makes today’s malware so dangerous is what it can do once it’s on the device. Modern banking trojans intercept authentication codes and phone calls, persist undetected, hide from security tools, and impersonate a legitimate banking session to commit fraud. The customer is unaware and the bank’s traditional fraud stack notices nothing unusual. By the time the fraud is detected, it has already happened.โ
