Protect your organization from cybersecurity attacks in an evolving threat landscape

Key takeaways:

• Enterprise organizations must move beyond traditional perimeter defenses and adopt identity-focused, resilient and agile security strategies to protect their operations.
• Cyber criminals increasingly launch identity-based attacks, AI-enhanced social engineering, new ransomware tactics, supply chain disruptions, and state-sponsored cyber threats.
• Ransomware schemes have moved beyond traditional malware – instead, exploiting people, trusted relationships, and geopolitical instability to access sensitive systems and data.
• Enterprise security leaders must balance prevention, mitigation and recovery strategies to bolster cyber-resilience and protect their organizations.

As the digital landscape evolves, so does the complexity and persistence of cybersecurity risks. Large enterprises are facing a threat environment* defined by AI-enabled attacks, identity and geopolitically motivated operations. Enterprise Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) have had to shift from protecting the perimeters of their organizations to security models centered on identity, resilience and speed.

Against that backdrop, organizations must continually adapt to counter sophisticated attacks and safeguard organizational assets – especially since attackers are increasingly able to bypass traditional defenses* with legitimate credentials and trusted platforms. Compounding matters further, organized crime syndicates and hostile nation-states have joined the battle, taking advantage of the vulnerabilities created by dependence on online portals and fintech innovations with their own interconnectedness.

Evolving threats and organizational vulnerabilities

Enterprise information security leaders must stay on top of emerging cybersecurity threats, correctly diagnose attack surface exposure and develop new strategies for closing gaps – especially as attackers learn new ways to evade traditional endpoint controls and prioritize trying to gain access to sensitive organizational systems.

• Identity-based attacks and credential theft

Identity compromise has become one of the most urgent risks for large organizations this year. Attackers increasingly avoid malware and instead gain access through stolen credentials, session tokens, MFA bypasses, help-desk fraud, and social engineering campaigns. According to CrowdStrike,* 79% of observed initial-access attacks are now malware-free, while access-broker activity continues to rise. The same report also indicates a 442% increase in voice-phishing activity, reflecting how attackers are targeting employees rather than endpoints.

• AI-powered social engineering, phishing and deepfakes

Generative AI has dramatically improved attackers' ability to create convincing phishing emails, fake voice calls, synthetic video, and executive impersonation scams. These advancements allow cybercriminals to operationalize social engineering scams at scale,* with impersonations becoming increasingly convincing and employee security awareness training losing effectiveness in preventing breaches.

• Ransomware and data extortion

Ransomware remains a top enterprise threat, but the model has evolved. Many operators now prioritize data theft and extortion* rather than encryption alone – this means that cybercriminals are not only taking sensitive data hostage, but also threaten to leak information or engage in public shaming campaigns to coerce organizations into paying. Overall, business interruption costs and damage to organizational reputation typically exceed actual ransom payments – making this a high-priority area for security leaders to prevent and remediate. Disrupting financial operations is not only about immediate financial gain but often about long-term destabilization. These types of attacks are elaborate, leveraging advanced technologies and sustained efforts that extend well beyond the capabilities of isolated cybercriminals.

• Supply chain and third-party compromise

Supply-chain attacks* remain one of the highest-impact risks because they enable attackers to compromise many organizations through a single trusted vendor, development tool, cloud provider or software component. As enterprise vendor ecosystems grow increasingly complex, it can be difficult to pinpoint root causes of cybersecurity threats and close all vulnerabilities posed by third parties who offer services and software to organizations.

• Geopolitically driven cyber operations

Geopolitical tensions continue to result in cyber-attacks against large corporations. State-sponsored actors* increasingly target critical sectors, like telecommunications providers, financial institutions and multinational corporations. These threats typically focus on long-term destabilization and stealing intellectual property, rather than short-term financial gains.

The executive playbook for cybersecurity resilience

For 2026, the most effective CISOs are shifting investment away from purely preventative controls and toward cyber resilience, identity security, AI governance, and operational recovery. The stakes are high – the 2026 IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report* shows that the average incident costs organizations $4.99 million, with additional downstream negative impacts to brand reputation and operational stability.

Your payments processor is a critical partner for protecting financial operations from cyber-threats and helping to mitigate the effects of breach incidents. While specific initiatives vary significantly by industry and technology stacks, there are three overall approaches to bolster organizational cybersecurity and address vulnerabilities.

• Prevention

Identifying gaps in IT infrastructure and security processes is critical for preventing cyberthreats before they attack. Particularly, identity security modernization should be the highest-priority initiative for most large enterprises. Frameworks like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) include robust guidance on access controls for both employees and vendors, multi-factor authentication, least-privilege principles and other safeguards to limit identity risk and access vulnerabilities.

Further, organizations must continue to implement and update security controls for new enterprise systems,* like generative AI tools for employees. This includes regularly inventorying which applications employees can access, establishing governance policies to reduce risk exposure and leadership buy-in for rollback procedures if applications become too unsafe.

Lastly, employee readiness* must extend beyond training and focus on reducing potential harm if social engineering tactics are successful. As senior executives are increasingly targeted by AI-generated impersonation scams, it is important to implement additional verification protocols and approval workflows to prevent unusual transactions or compromised communications from going through.

• Mitigation

In the event of a successful breach, security leaders must work quickly and cross-functionally to contain the incident, understand its scope, protect affected stakeholders, restore operations, and meet legal and regulatory obligations. The best-practice response follows a structured incident response lifecycle* and the ability to isolate compromised systems.

Mitigation efforts are substantially easier when systems and processes are already aligned – for example, real-time session monitoring of financial operations software platforms ensures that attacks are quickly identified and isolated before cybercriminals can access sensitive data. Further, ensuring all accounts receivable transaction data is tokenized and encrypted reduces risk of successful theft, even if perimeters are breached.

The combination of AI-assisted security monitoring and human intervention is critical for responding to cybersecurity incidents* quickly and effectively. AI tools can continuously monitor vendor activities and system health, and then alert security leaders to potential threats to intervene directly.

• Recovery

Once cybersecurity incidents are isolated and remediated, CISOs must be prepared to lead recovery efforts that focus on stabilizing operations, communicating with employees and clients, and strengthening protections against future attacks. Establishing, measuring and attaining several key performance indicators (KPIs)* can help guide priorities and demonstrate progress over time – such as mean recovery time for critical services, percentage of system users enrolled in multi-factor authentication and volume of SaaS platforms governed and assessed annually for cyber risks.

Recovery plans should quickly activate communications and playbooks to affected teams. These should instruct system users on how to reset credentials, remove vendor access, and rotate privileged access – among other critical activities to stabilize systems and reduce further risks.

The cybersecurity landscape is continually evolving, driven by sophisticated criminals and AI-fueled social-engineering schemes. Enterprise CISOs must stay up-to-date on emerging threat trends, invest in prevention initiatives and develop cross-functional approaches for mitigation and recovery. You don’t have to navigate these challenges alone – a trusted payments partner can advise on processes and solutions to protect financial operations and sensitive data.

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