As we near the end of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, I’m sure you’ve seen the usual reminders such as use a strong password, don’t click suspicious links, and lock your computer when you step away. Those are important messages and worth repeating year after year to all staff.
Yet, we often overlook the importance of having a different kind of conversation with the C-suite. Executives face their own unique risks, and their decisions set the tone for how an organization manages cybersecurity overall. As 2025 comes to a close and we look ahead to 2026, here are five areas of cybersecurity where leaders should be focusing their attention.
AI Can Help and Hurt
It's amazing how quickly Artificial intelligence has become a "must have" in a business environment. Unfortunately, it's not just businesses that are innovating with AI. Attackers are just as innovative. Cybercriminals are using AI to automate attacks, generate highly convincing phishing messages, and even create deepfake audio and video of executives. Imagine receiving a call that sounds exactly like your CFO authorizing a wire transfer. These scenarios are no longer hypothetical.
At the same time, AI is becoming a powerful defensive tool. Security teams are beginning to use AI to detect unusual patterns, spot anomalies in network activity, and reduce response times during incidents. The challenge is that many organizations are still experimenting with these tools rather than embedding them into an overall strategy.
What this means for the C-suite: AI should not be treated as a technology experiment tucked inside IT. It’s a strategic capability that requires governance, investment, and alignment with the organization’s risk appetite. Are you keeping pace with adversaries, does your security platform use AI to assist your security engineers in detecting and responding to incidents, and do you have a plan for using AI responsibly and transparently?
Third-Party Ecosystems: The Security of Your Data is in Someone Else's Hands
Over the past few years, many of the most damaging cyber incidents have not come from direct attacks but through trusted partners. Supply chain compromises, third-party data breaches, and vulnerabilities in widely used software tools have shown that your organization is only as strong as its weakest vendor.
The C-suite often thinks about risk in terms of contracts and insurance, but cybersecurity risk from partners requires more active oversight. It’s not enough to ask vendors to fill out a questionnaire once a year. Executives should be asking how third-party risks are assessed, monitored, and addressed throughout the year.
What this means for the C-suite: Review your governance around vendor risk. Are procurement and security teams working together? Do you know which partners have access to sensitive systems or data? Do you have contingency plans if a key vendor is compromised? In 2026, attackers will continue to look for the easiest path in, and it’s often through a trusted third-party vendor.
Resilience as a Business Strategy
No organization can prevent every breach. The real question is how well you can detect, withstand, and recover from an incident. Cyber resilience means having the ability to keep operating, protect critical data, and recover quickly when something goes wrong.
Investors, customers, and regulators are all paying attention to resilience. Insurers are adjusting premiums based on it. Boards are asking for evidence of it. Yet many organizations still frame cybersecurity as an IT expense rather than as an investment in stability and trust.
What this means for the C-suite: Think of resilience as a competitive advantage. The faster and more effectively you can bounce back from an attack, the more confidence you build with customers, employees, and stakeholders. Run a tabletop exercise that involves the entire leadership team to simulate how you would communicate, how quickly you could recover, and how much an attack would cost in downtime and reputation.
C-Suite as Targets
Executives are increasingly the most attractive targets for attackers. Your visibility makes you a natural entry point, and your authority makes impersonation highly profitable. CEO fraud, where attackers pose as executives to authorize fraudulent transfers, is on the rise. AI voice cloning is making these scams even more convincing.
Executives also face heightened risks when traveling. Compromised hotel Wi-Fi, malicious charging stations, and targeted SIM swaps can all expose personal and professional data. These aren’t just IT issues; they’re leadership risks that need personal attention.
What this means for the C-suite: Executives need to be engaging in good cyber hygiene just as much, if not more, than frontline staff. They need tailored protections, training, and safeguards. That might include stricter authentication requirements, secure travel protocols, or personal device support. Is your company holding your leaders to the same or higher standard of security you expect from everyone else?
Strategic Questions for the 2026 Board Agenda
Cybersecurity must move beyond technical updates to the board and focus more on strategy and business performance. As we head into 2026, executives should be asking:
- How are we aligning cyber risk to financial outcomes the board can understand?
- Are we investing correctly in people, processes, and governance, or are we still over-investing in tools?
- Do we have a leadership continuity plan that accounts for cyber disruption?
- How does our approach to cyber resilience tie into Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), corporate responsibility, and stakeholder trust?
These questions move the conversation from firewalls and patching to accountability, governance, and long-term value.
Conclusion: Cybersecurity as a Competitive Advantage
Cybersecurity today isn’t about checklists or compliance. It’s about building trust, protecting reputation, and ensuring the business can operate with confidence in a constantly evolving threat environment.
For executives, the goal isn’t to become security experts but to treat cyber risk as business risk. The organizations that will thrive are those that make cybersecurity part of strategic planning, hold themselves accountable for third-party and executive-level risks, and use AI responsibly to strengthen defenses.
As Cybersecurity Awareness Month wraps up, it’s worth remembering that awareness is just the starting point. The next step is engagement, especially from those in the corner office.
