Cybersecurity 2026: the end of ransomware as you know it — and what replaces it

What WatchGuard's experts anticipate for 2026 — and what it means for your business

Every year end, the Threat Lab at WatchGuard Technologies — one of our principal cybersecurity partners — publishes its key predictions for the year ahead. Those for 2026 are particularly significant: they describe not an evolution, but a rupture.

Ransomware as we have known it for a decade is dying. AI is shifting from a support tool to an autonomous attacker. And the VPN that has been protecting your remote access for years is becoming your weakest link.

Here is what these six predictions mean in concrete terms for an SME in Normandy or Île-de-France — and what you need to do right now.

Prediction 1: crypto-ransomware is going to disappear

This is the most counter-intuitive shift. WatchGuard announces that traditional ransomware — the kind that encrypts your files and demands a ransom to decrypt them — will progressively die out in 2026.

The reason is straightforward and, paradoxically, reassuring on one point: businesses have learned to back up more effectively. Immutable backup solutions and well-applied 3-2-1 strategies now allow many organisations to restore their systems without giving in to blackmail. Encryption is no longer profitable.

So attackers are adapting. Instead of encrypting, they steal your data, threaten to make it public, and even go as far as reporting their victims to regulators or insurers to increase the pressure. This is what professionals call pure double extortion — and it is far more devastating than classic ransomware, because no backup can remedy it.

What this means for you: having good backups is no longer enough. If your customer data, HR records, or confidential documents are exfiltrated, you face a mandatory ICO notification, major reputational risk, and potentially significant penalties. The priority shifts from restoration to early detection of exfiltration.

Prediction 2: the first fully autonomous AI cyberattack will take place this year

In 2026, WatchGuard predicts that AI will stop merely assisting cybercriminals and begin attacking autonomously. From reconnaissance and vulnerability scanning to lateral movement and exfiltration, these autonomous systems will be capable of orchestrating a complete compromise at machine speed.

This is not science fiction. In 2025, the WatchGuard Threat Lab had predicted that multimodal AI tools would be capable of covering every stage of the attack chain — and that prediction proved correct. 2026 takes the next step: AI no longer assists the human attacker, it is the attacker.

The practical consequence: an AI attack can test thousands of entry vectors simultaneously, adapt in real time to the defences it encounters, and act at a speed no human analyst can match in response.

What this means for you: traditional security tools — signature-based antivirus, firewalls without behavioural inspection — will not detect these attacks. The response requires AI-driven detection tools (EDR/MDR) capable of analysing abnormal behaviour in real time and acting before a compromise is complete.

Prediction 3: the VPN becomes your greatest vulnerability

2026 will be the year in which SMEs begin to adopt ZTNA (Zero Trust Network Access) solutions en masse, eliminating the need to expose a potentially vulnerable VPN port on the internet. The ZTNA provider handles service security through its cloud platform, and access is no longer blanket: each group of users obtains only the strictly necessary access to the internal resources they need.

To understand why this is critical: a traditional VPN works like a key that opens the entire house. If an employee's credentials are stolen — through phishing, credential stuffing, or a breach on another service — the attacker enters your network with potentially unlimited access.

ZTNA reverses this logic. Each user sees only what they need, from access that is continuously verified, without ever exposing a network port on the internet. Attackers scanning your perimeter find nothing to exploit.

The ANSSI Cyber Threat Panorama 2025 confirms this diagnosis: perimeter equipment — firewalls, VPN concentrators — remains the most exploited entry points. Vulnerabilities in products such as Ivanti, Fortinet, and Citrix were exploited at scale in 2025, sometimes on the very day of their disclosure.

What this means for you: if your remote access still relies on a VPN configured several years ago, without systematic MFA and without a recent review, this is an immediate audit priority.

Prediction 4: the Cyber Resilience Act makes security mandatory by design

With the arrival of new regulations such as the European Union's Cyber Resilience Act, the principles of secure-by-design and secure-by-default are progressively becoming the norm. Security is no longer optional: it is becoming a regulatory requirement from the moment products are conceived.

The first phase of the CRA comes into force in September 2026: manufacturers of software and connected hardware sold in the EU will be required to report actively exploited vulnerabilities within 24 hours. For you, as a customer of software publishers and digital service providers, this means increased pressure across your entire software supply chain.

In practical terms, your ERP, your messaging platform, and your business tools will need to meet stricter security requirements — and their publishers will be required to notify you promptly in the event of a critical vulnerability. An additional lever for demanding more from your software suppliers.

What this means for you: now is the time to draw up an inventory of your tools and publishers, identify which are subject to the CRA, and verify their maturity in responsible vulnerability disclosure.

Prediction 5: AI becomes mandatory on the defensive side too

WatchGuard is explicit: only AI-driven defensive tools that detect, analyse, and remediate at the same speed as attacking AIs will stand any chance of holding the line.

This directly concerns MSPs such as IMACS SERVICES. Our mission is no longer limited to keeping your infrastructure running — it consists of detecting the early warning signs of a compromise before it materialises. This is precisely why we integrate WatchGuard MDR (Managed Detection and Response) solutions into our monitoring offerings: a layer of behavioural detection, in real time, processing alerts at machine speed.

Prediction 6: mastery of AI becomes a core cybersecurity competence

Attackers are using AI to generate indistinguishable phishing emails, to automate reconnaissance, and to adapt their payloads in real time. Defenders who do not understand how these tools work — and how to counter them — are structurally behind.

WatchGuard was named a Champion in the Omdia Global Cybersecurity MSP Ecosystems Leadership Matrix 2026 for the fourth consecutive year, notably thanks to the integration of AI into its unified platform — from detection of stealthy malware to multi-vector event correlation.

What this means in practice for an SME with 20 to 200 users

These predictions may seem abstract from a meeting room in Évreux or the Paris suburbs. Here is the concrete translation:

This table is not a criticism — it reflects the reality of 80% of the SMEs we audit. And it is precisely what our MSP approach is designed to address, step by step, in line with your budget and your pace.

Why WatchGuard — and why with a local partner

WatchGuard is not simply a firewall publisher. It is a unified cybersecurity platform — firewall, EDR, MFA, MDR, ZTNA, secure Wi-Fi — conceived from the outset for MSPs and their SME clients. This model has a decisive advantage: a single console, consistent policies, and centralised visibility across your entire infrastructure.

But technology without local expertise is not enough. This is where IMACS SERVICES comes in:

• we deploy, configure, and monitor WatchGuard solutions across your actual environment, with your operational constraints in mind;
• we maintain continuous watch over critical alerts and new vulnerabilities — and we act without waiting for your call;
• we can be on site within 4 hours in Normandy and Île-de-France when the situation demands it;
• we provide you with monthly reports that are readable, without unnecessary jargon.

An IT provider that simply responds to tickets is no longer fit for purpose in 2026. The threat does not wait for office hours.

Where to start? The WatchGuard security audit

If you have not reviewed your security posture in over a year — or ever — this is the first step to take. Our security audit covers:

• Network perimeter: the state of your firewall, VPN configuration, exposed ports;
• Endpoints: the level of protection on your workstations and servers, whether behavioural detection is active;
• Identities: MFA deployed or not, privileged access management, dormant accounts;
• Backups: strategy in place, immutability, last tested restoration;
• Awareness: the level of training your teams have received on current attack vectors.

At the end: a structured report, clear priorities, and a costed action plan. You decide on the next steps — with no obligation.

"We are on the cusp of a new era where attack and defence will play out on a battlefield dominated by AI. Defenders who are unable to match that level of speed and precision will be overtaken before they even realise they are being targeted."
— Marc Laliberté, Director of Security Operations, WatchGuard Technologies

2026 will not look like 2023. The rules are changing. The tools must change too.

Request a WatchGuard security audit with IMACS SERVICES · Book an appointment with our team

---

Sources: WatchGuard Threat Lab — Cybersecurity Predictions 2026 · Cyber Threat Panorama 2025 — ANSSI (March 2026) · WatchGuard Omdia MSP Leadership Matrix 2026.