WatchGuard's 2026 Cybersecurity Predictions - The 443 Podcast Episode 351

This week on the podcast, we go through all six of our cybersecurity predictions for 2026. For each prediction, we'll discuss the trends behind them, why we think they'll hit next year, and some takeaways for people and organizations on how to react to them in the coming year.

This week on the podcast, we cover OWASP’s update to the top 10 web application security weaknesses and its changes from the 2021 list. We also cover a recently uncovered adversary-in-the-middle campaign that’s pushing malicious software updates to targeted systems. We conclude with our opinions on Microsoft’s latest AI features, which are coming to Windows.

This week on the podcast, we review our 2025 security predictions and grade ourselves on our accuracy. We recap all 6 predictions for 2025 from multi-modal AI being used to create entire attack chains to the CISO role becoming the least desirable role in business, and follow up on this year's news to see if they hit or not.

This week on the podcast, we have our resident ransomware expert, Ryan Estes, on to give an update on the latest in the ransomware ecosystem. We cover a few recent changes to operators, extortion techniques, and business impact from ransomware attacks in recent months.

This week on the podcast, we discuss the wave of extortion attacks targeting companies that use Salesforce. After that, we discuss Discord's breach involving their customer support application. Finally, we dive deep into the recent Oracle E-Business Suite zero day vulnerability and how attackers chained together multiple low-severity findings into a critical issue.

This week on the podcast, we bring on WatchGuard's head of MDR data science Luke Wolcott to discuss the evolution of machine learning and artificial intelligence in cybersecurity. We dive into the differences in common (and uncommon) machine learning models, the pros and cons of supervised vs unsupervised learning, and why some of the coolest things happening in AI aren't the ones you hear about in the news.

This week on the podcast, we discuss Cisco's recent zero-day vulnerabilities before covering a Microsoft Threat Intelligence post on a phishing campaign that abuses SVG files. After that, we review GitHub's proposed changes for securing the open source software supply chain.

This week on the podcast, we cover a vulnerability in Entra ID that could have allowed attackers to gain Global Admin access to any and all Entra ID tenants. After that, we discuss the Shai Hulud NPM worm that ran rampant over the last week, infecting hundreds of packages. Finally, we end with a quick reminder to WatchGuard Firebox customers to update their devices to the latest firmware to resolve CVE-2025-9242z

This week on the podcast, we cover a massive software supply chain compromise involving widely-used NPM packages. After that we discuss an increase in social engineering attacks called ClickFix. Finally, we end with a discussion of Senator Wyden's recent letter to the FTC demanding Microsoft being held accountable for "gross cybersecurity negligence" and whether his claims have any merit.

This week on the podcast, we discuss a recently published research study from UC San Diego on the effectiveness on security awareness training on phishing prevention. After that, we discuss a security researcher's work on identifying vulnerabilities in four separate employee webapps at Intel. Finally, we end with our analysis of a Ponemon Institute research report called The State of File Security.