Cyber-enabled fraud has overtaken ransomware as the first concern for CEOs, marking a serious shift in how enterprise leaders understand digital threat, in response to the World Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 report printed by the World Financial Discussion board (WEF) on Monday.
Ransomware has been a prime concern for executives for a few years. The info collected by the WEF for its earlier report confirmed that the highest cyber threat named by CEOs was ransomware assaults, adopted by cyber-enabled fraud and phishing, and provide chain disruptions.
For the 2026 report, ransomware didn’t make the highest three listing. Cyber fraud has grow to be the highest concern, adopted by AI vulnerabilities, and the exploitation of software program flaws.
A survey performed for the WEF evaluation discovered that 73% of CEOs have been personally affected, or they knew a enterprise chief affected, by cyber-enabled fraud in 2025.
As well as, 77% of respondents consider cyber fraud has elevated over the previous 12 months. A rise has additionally been reported for AI vulnerabilities (87%), provide chain disruption (65%), and vulnerability exploitation (58%).
Nonetheless, greater than half of the respondents have additionally reported a rise in ransomware assaults. Commercial. Scroll to proceed studying.
In reality, whereas the issues of CEOs have now shifted, ransomware has remained the highest worry for CISOs, adopted by provide chain disruption.
“This implies CEOs are prioritizing monetary loss prevention and making ready for brand new threats, whereas CISOs stay centered on operational resilience,” the WEF stated in its report.
The WEF’s evaluation additionally discovered that whereas AI stays a prime concern, the character of the menace has modified.
In 2025, the first worry was adversarial AI (ie, hackers utilizing AI to reinforce their assaults), cited by 47% of respondents. In 2026, the highest concern has shifted to unintended knowledge publicity (34%) attributable to staff utilizing generative AI instruments internally, whereas adversarial capabilities have dropped to the second place (29%).
Considerations concerning the usage of AI in organizations are additionally mirrored in the truth that 64% of organizations at the moment are actively assessing the safety of AI instruments earlier than deployment, up from 37% a 12 months in the past.
Organizations are additionally more and more implementing AI-enabled instruments to meet their cybersecurity targets, significantly in areas corresponding to detection of phishing and different e mail threats, intrusion detection and response, SOC automation, and insider menace monitoring.
The whole WEF World Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 report is obtainable in PDF format.
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