Cyberattacks in 2026 will no longer look like blunt-force digital assaults.

Cyberattacks in 2026 will no longer look like blunt-force digital assaults. Instead, they will behave, adapt, and even reason like humans.

That is the central warning in Seqrite’s India Cyber Threat Report 2026, released on January 5, where the enterprise cybersecurity arm of Quick Heal Technologies flags a new class of attacks it calls “cognitive threats.” These AI-driven intrusions signal a decisive break from the mass-scale, automated malware campaigns that dominated 2025.

According to the report, threat actors are now deploying autonomous AI systems capable of imitation, learning, and decision-making—blurring the line between human attackers and machines.

From Automation to Imitation

What makes cognitive threats fundamentally different is their human-like precision. Rather than relying on predefined scripts, these attacks operate with minimal human supervision, adjusting tactics in real time and blending seamlessly into normal digital behaviour.

One of the most concerning developments highlighted in the report is the rise of AI-generated digital twins. Using generative models, attackers can now recreate a person’s writing style, voice, and even video presence. These replicas are being weaponised for social engineering—making fraudulent emails, calls, and video messages almost indistinguishable from legitimate communication.

Malware That Evolves as It Attacks

Seqrite notes that modern AI-enabled malware is no longer static. These threats can alter their own signatures on the fly, dynamically change attack vectors, and persist inside systems by continuously adapting to security responses.

This adaptive persistence allows cognitive threats to evade traditional endpoint detection tools, which are still largely designed to recognise known patterns rather than evolving behaviour.

More critically, attackers are beginning to target the AI ecosystem itself. Development frameworks and orchestration tools—such as workflow-based AI platforms—are emerging as new attack surfaces, marking the early stages of direct assaults on AI infrastructure.

Rethinking Cyber Defence for 2026

To counter this shift, Seqrite argues that enterprises must move beyond reactive security and build what it terms “cognitive resilience.”

Key priorities include:

Identity as the Security Core: With network boundaries increasingly irrelevant, identity becomes the primary control point. Continuous authentication, Zero Trust architectures, and persistent MFA are essential.

Predictive Intelligence Over Alerts: Organisations need AI-powered threat intelligence that connects signals across endpoints, cloud environments, and networks—detecting intent, not just anomalies.

Machine-Speed Response: Defensive systems must be capable of autonomous decision-making, using generative AI and contextual correlation to neutralise threats faster than humans can react.

Securing the AI Stack: Internal AI models require integrity checks, adversarial testing, and protection against data poisoning to prevent manipulation from within.

Building a Human Firewall: As deepfake scams and hyper-personalised phishing increase, employee awareness becomes a frontline defence. Training must evolve to address deception that looks and sounds convincingly real.

A New Cyber Reality

Seqrite’s assessment makes one thing clear: cybersecurity in 2026 is no longer just a technical problem—it is a cognitive one. As attackers adopt AI systems that can observe, learn, and impersonate, defenders must respond with equal intelligence, autonomy, and foresight.

By Aaradhay Sharma