{"id":190740,"date":"2026-02-26T04:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/26\/the-new-cybersecurity-crisis-intelligent-ciso\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T04:59:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:59:00","slug":"the-new-cybersecurity-crisis-intelligent-ciso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/26\/the-new-cybersecurity-crisis-intelligent-ciso\/","title":{"rendered":"The new cybersecurity crisis \u2013 Intelligent CISO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new cybersecurity crisis \u2013 Intelligent CISO<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/2026\/02\/26\/from-skills-gap-to-preparedness-gap-the-new-cybersecurity-crisis\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-26 04:59:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.intelligentciso.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

As cyberattacks become increasingly sophisticated and disruptive, new research points to a growing preparedness gap between organisational defences and the pace of evolving threats, with cybersecurity expert Damon Small, Board of Directors, Xcape, warning that concerns over ransomware readiness and cautious AI adoption are intensifying resilience challenges.<\/p>\n

The cybersecurity industry has long been battling a skills gap, but it\u2019s the preparedness gap that is now prevailing and a more urgent response is needed.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s hospitals, schools, or critical infrastructure providers being targeted, the impact is immediate, visible and in some cases, irreparable.<\/p>\n

The latest victim to hit the headlines is University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). The university confirmed a cyberattack incident and reported that it led to the closing of all statewide clinics and the cancellation of non-urgent medical appointments and procedures through at least the following day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s safe to say the result of this disruption severely impacted patients and the organisation reported that it was \u2013 at the time \u2013 unsure of the extent of any compromise to patients\u2019 personal data.<\/p>\n

Cybersecurity expert, Damon Small, Board of Directors, Xcape, offered his take: \u201cHealthcare organisations must recognise that they are attractive targets and should proactively invest in network segmentation, data backups and incident response capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

When referencing sophistication it\u2019s almost impossible to avoid mentioning AI, particularly when it is responsible for accelerating the threat landscape at such an unprecedented rate and attackers are using it to refine their tactics. Even when cyber defences are in place, they can quickly become overwhelmed resulting in long lasting damage.<\/p>\n

Ivanti\u2019s new 2026 State of Cybersecurity Report explores this in more detail \u2013 specifically the \u2018preparedness gap\u2019 between threats and how defences are widening. One of the key takeaways from the report notes how companies are struggling to keep up with increasingly complex attacks, causing the gap between attacker and defender to widen.<\/p>\n

Worryingly, 54% of all organisations surveyed in the report said they believed their company \u2018would\u2019 or \u2018probably would\u2019 pay if hit by a ransomware attack today. That\u2019s over half of respondents; a shocking result which should be ringing alarm bells for CISOs.<\/p>\n

AI is frequently positioned as the answer to this challenge, yet adoption tells a more cautious story. New data from Splunk\u2019s The CISO Report: From Risk to Resilience in the AI Era reveals that just 6% of the 650 CISOs surveyed globally have fully deployed agentic AI in security operations, even as threats become more advanced.<\/p>\n

This is yet another startling result considering 95% of CISOs cite increasingly sophisticated threat actors as their greatest risk, creating pressure to adopt AI faster while still managing risk.<\/p>\n

The research also shows strong belief in AI\u2019s operational value, with 92% saying it enables teams to review more security events, yet 86% worry agentic AI will supercharge social engineering attacks, accelerating both speed and scale.<\/p>\n

This tension highlights the heart of the preparedness gap. Organisations recognise the power of AI but lack the operational confidence, governance structures or risk appetite to deploy it fully and the result is attackers move faster, while defenders hesitate.<\/p>\n

The issue here is structural rather than purely technological \u2013 CISOs need to prioritise instilling confidence into their teams to eliminate the consideration of paying a ransom and the way to do this is by strengthening protection and recovery capabilities. If AI is widely acknowledged as critical, yet scarcely deployed, that indicates uncertainty around control, accountability and unintended consequences.<\/p>\n

Preparedness is about integrating the latest tools effectively, aligning strategy with threat intelligence, rehearsing incident response and building institutional resilience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new cybersecurity crisis \u2013 Intelligent CISO https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/2026\/02\/26\/from-skills-gap-to-preparedness-gap-the-new-cybersecurity-crisis\/ Publish Date: 2026-02-26 04:59:00 Source Domain: www.intelligentciso.com…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,24],"class_list":["post-190740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}