Seven CEO priorities to cut cyber risk in 2026

16/01/26 Wavenet
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Cyber risk in 2026: a core business issue, not just an IT problem

The Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 report by the World Economic Forum highlights seven priorities CEOs should own: 


  • Cyber-enabled fraud is now the top CEO concern.

Move beyond a narrow focus on ransomware. Treat fraud and phishing as major financial and trust risks, jointly owned by the CEO, CFO and CISO.

  • AI is both a risk and a defensive advantage.

    AI-driven data leaks and adversarial attacks are growing fast. At the same time, many organisations already use AI for detection and response. CEOs must insist on AI security assessments, governance, and human oversight.

  • Resilience must go beyond minimum compliance.

    Many companies say they "meet requirements", but real incidents show large operational and financial impacts. Invest in tested response and recovery, not just prevention.

  • Geopolitics now shapes cyber strategy.

    Nation-state threats, sanctions, and regional tensions directly affect cyber risk. Leading organisations are increasing threat intelligence and engagement with governments and information-sharing groups. 

  • Supply chain and third-party risk are first order.

    Attacks on vendors can quickly cascade into your business. Build security into procurement, assess supplier maturity, and run joint incident simulations.

  • The cyber skills gap is a hard limit on resilience.

    Shortages in threat intelligence, DevSecOps and identity management are a defining constraint, especially for smaller organisations and certain regions. CEOs need multi-year talent and upskilling plans.

  • Board level governance is a differentiator.

    Highly resilient organisations have engaged boards, empowered CISOs and use regulation to raise awareness, secure budgets, and build customer trust.

How to reduce cyber risk

This is where we recommend CEOs start: 

  • Run a cyber risk and fraud review - map your top fraud, AI, and supply chain exposures in clear business (not technical) terms.
  • Assess your resilience, not just your compliance - test incident response and recovery (including key suppliers) at least annually.
  • Harden your controls around people and partners - strengthen identity and access management, payment controls, and third-party security due diligence.
  • Put AI under governance - make an inventory of AI use, implement security assessments for AI tools, and define rules for data use and human oversight.
  • Close the skills gap with partners - combine internal capability with MSP services for 24/7 monitoring, threat intelligence, and incident response.

Used well, a managed security partner can give you scale, skills, and tooling to act on these priorities quickly, without waiting years to build everything in-house.


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Cyber Security, Managed Services

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