With the new year officially in full swing, businesses have the perfect opportunity to improve their cybersecurity strategy. Doing so helps defend against rapidly evolving threats, ensure customer trust, and maintain compliance with industry standards.
To be effective, it's helpful to reflect on the trends that shaped the security landscape in 2025, using those lessons to guide their priorities in 2026. These lessons help us learn what attackers might be planning next, which defenses proved most effective, and which security investments must be prioritized for the rest of the year.
In this blog post, we’ll explore five of them and discuss how a reliable managed security services provider like Techmedics can empower organizations to elevate their cybersecurity posture.
Cybercriminals are increasingly utilizing generative AI to create visual and audio deepfakes of company CEOs to authorize sensitive data requests or fraudulent wire transfers. These deepfake ads may also feature fake endorsements from trusted figures to trick victims into joining fraudulent groups or downloading malicious apps.
Additionally, online scams can no longer be easily identified through grammatical errors or poor language. This is because cybercriminals are using AI tools like ChatGPT to write convincing messages and research targets, making phishing emails and online content sound more realistic.
Research by Trend Micro found that more cybercriminals are using off-the-shelf AI generation platforms. These tools are easy to use and inexpensive, unlike technically demanding attack methods like custom malware development or manual social engineering. As a result, the barrier to entry into cybercrime is now much lower.
Fortunately, the same technology helping cybercriminals carry out attacks is also giving security teams and businesses more capability to prevent, detect, and address cybersecurity threats.
For instance, did you know that cybersecurity teams are using AI models to analyze large amounts of network traffic to spot anomalies? Such tools also block malicious traffic or isolate compromised endpoints in case of an attack. Furthermore, machine learning technology predicts attack patterns, helping security teams stay ahead of attackers.
Ultimately, AI platforms help security teams become more productive, allowing them to focus on strategy instead of fighting fires.
With more organizations adopting various technology stacks and platforms, third-party attacks have significantly increased.
Take the Marquis security incident, for example. The Texas-based company fell victim to a ransomware attack, allowing hackers to steal data from hundreds of thousands of users across several banking and credit union customers. This demonstrates how a single point of failure can result in a wide attack surface.
And in November 2025, Salesforce was involved in a data breach that compromised over 1.5 billion records from more than 700 companies. While the incident wasn’t caused directly by Salesforce itself, lawsuits argue that Salesforce failed to vet third-party apps and monitor suspicious activity.
That being said, it’s important to thoroughly vet vendors by reviewing their incident response capabilities, patch management practices, and security certifications. Make sure as well that they enforce strict access controls and encrypt data in transit and at rest. Lastly, see if the vendor has been involved in past data breaches and what they did to address the problem.
Cybersecurity experts regularly advise individuals and businesses to use strong passwords to protect their data from data breaches and other cyberattacks. Despite this, many users continue relying on predictable and easy-to-guess credentials.
In Kaspersky’s latest research that analyzed major data breaches from 2023 to 2025, individuals mostly used “12345” as their password. Other common inclusions were the word “love,” first names, and locations. What’s even more concerning is the fact that the majority of leaked credentials remain unchanged for years, implying that people continue to recycle passwords, even after data breaches occur.
When creating a strong password, one might think of including a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. However, this is not as effective as passphrases. These are passwords that consist of a series of unrelated words, such as “correcthorsebatterystaple,” or “crystalnotepadhydrogenhulk.”
Passphrases are not just stronger than regular passwords due to their length and randomness, they are also easier to remember than those that rely on random characters, such as “X7$&r2.”
Aside from using passphrases, it’s also ideal to leverage the following to secure your data:
2025 marked a turning point for cybersecurity compliance, with adherence to regulations and contractual frameworks becoming mandatory for businesses rather than just another IT best practice.
With the GDPR, for instance, companies must strengthen data encryption and access controls, and implement clear, lawful, and user-friendly mechanisms for obtaining consent. Non-compliance can result in substantial fines of up to $23 million or 4% of annual global turnover.
Meanwhile, CMMC 2.0 compliance for defense contractors is no longer optional as of November 10, 2025. Contractors must complete a Level 1 self-assessment or Level 2 third-party assessment through a Third-Party Assessor Organization before being awarded contracts that involve Federal Contract Information and Controlled Unclassified Information. The Department of Defense directly conducts Level 3 assessments.
Failing to meet new CMMC 2.0 requirements may result in project ineligibility, legal liability, or reputational damage.
Taking these developments into account, why not make it your business’s New Year’s resolution to strengthen its cybersecurity resilience? Techmedics can help you achieve that.
We are your reliable MSSP in Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas offering the following solutions:
Techmedics employs local engineers, so you can benefit from quicker response times, better collaboration, and onsite support. We also ensure our cybersecurity solutions meet your organization's goals and needs.
Keep your business one step ahead of threats this 2026. Talk to our experts today for a FREE cybersecurity consultation.
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