News brief: Future of security holds bigger budgets, new threats

As the world barrels toward a new year, executives and lawmakers alike are, by turn, optimistic about the future of cybersecurity -- and deeply apprehensive.

In the SOC, for example, agentic AI promises to improve efficiency and effectiveness, enabling better cybersecurity outcomes and easing the pressure on chronically understaffed and overworked SecOps teams. On the other hand, AI threatens to make threat actors more efficient and effective too, enabling them to launch autonomous attacks at speed and scale.

This week's featured articles look toward 2026 and beyond, and they reflect a mixed forecast. Many CISOs will be glad to hear that cybersecurity budgets are expected to rise globally, indicating a growing recognition that cyber-risk puts the business at risk. In more troubling news, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers warns the federal government is underprepared for an anticipated rise in AI-enabled attacks. Plus, experts predict humanoid robots will walk ...