Trend Micro Warns 2026 Will Mark the Rise of Fully Automated AI Cybercrime

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global cybersecurity company, released their Security Predictions for 2026 report, warning that the coming year will usher in the true industrialization of cybercrime. With artificial intelligence (AI) and automation now enabling threat actors to run entire campaigns autonomously—from reconnaissance to extortion—enterprises face unprecedented speed, scale, and complexity.

Ryan Flores, Lead of Forward-Looking Threat Research at Trend states: "2026 will be remembered as the year cybercrime stopped being a service industry and became a fully automated one. We are entering an era where AI agents will discover, exploit, and monetize weaknesses without human input. The challenge for defenders is no longer simply detecting attacks, it's keeping pace with the machine-driven tempo of threats."

The report details how generative AI and agentic systems are reshaping the economics of cybercrime. Autonomous intrusion campaigns that adapt on the fly, polymorphic malware that continuously rewrites itself, and deepfake-powered social engineering are expected to be standard tools for attackers. At the same time, organizations will face a surge of synthetic code, contaminated AI models, and compromised modules hidden within legitimate workflows—further blurring the boundary between innovation and exploitation.

Key targets in 2026 include hybrid cloud environments, software supply chains, and AI infrastructures. Trend Micro predicts rising volumes of poisoned open-source packages, malicious container images, and attacks abusing over-privileged cloud identities. State-sponsored groups are also anticipated to accelerate “harvest-now, decrypt-later” strategies to future-proof espionage against the advance of quantum computing.

Ransomware is poised to evolve into a self-managing, AI-powered ecosystem, capable of identifying high-value victims, detecting exploitable weaknesses, and even negotiating with targets via automated extortion bots. These campaigns are expected to become faster, more persistent, and increasingly difficult to trace—driven by data rather than encryption alone.

Trend Micro urges organizations to shift from reactive defense to proactive resilience, embedding security into every layer of AI adoption, cloud operations, and supply chain risk management. Companies that combine ethical AI use, adaptive defense, and human oversight will be best positioned to keep pace.

The 2026 predictions outline a forward path built on visibility, automation with human validation, and treating security as a strategic infrastructure. Organizations that innovate securely—balancing speed with governance and intelligence with ethics—will set the benchmark for trust and resilience in an increasingly autonomous digital world.

Source: Trend Micro Incorporated

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