Sygnia released its 2026 CISO Survey on Incident Response Readiness, revealing a concerning disconnect between IR planning and real-world preparedness.
Based on the global 2026 CISO survey of more than 600 senior cybersecurity decision makers, the findings reveal that though 76% of organizations have experienced at least one cyber attack in the last 12 months, 73% of senior cybersecurity decision makers say their organization would not be fully ready to execute under pressure if a significant cybersecurity attack occurred tomorrow.
This lack of confidence, despite a near-universal (99%) adoption of formal IR plans, can be attributed to three themes apparent in the report: organizational friction, cross-environment visibility and a broadening array of threats spanning a growing threat surface in the AI era.
Organizational Friction
Even with a concrete IR plan in place, Sygnia’s report revealed organization hierarchy and siloed priorities as critical roadblocks to an effective response to a cyber attack. For some sectors, such as private healthcare, this issue is compounded by increased regulatory and reputational stakes, with respondents reporting legal and communications challenges (86%) when responding to a cyber attack compared to other industries. Top challenges to IR execution include:
- Difficulty coordinating key stakeholders in the event of an attack (90%)
- Limited executive or board involvement in IR readiness and decision making (89%)
- Legal and communications slowing down decision making (75%)
“Incident response must be owned at the security, operational, and executive levels, with defined decision-making roles, pre-agreed escalation pathways, and regular board-level rehearsal,” said Guy Segal, CEO of Sygnia. “This report puts a spotlight on a troubling reality in that despite most organizations having an IR strategy in place, there is a clear lack of confidence in both the IR playbook itself as well as organizations’ ability to execute in a high-pressure real-world scenario. With the rapid adoption of AI driving both innovation and a larger attack surface, there has never been a more critical time to revisit IR readiness.”
Visibility Gaps
Nearly 8 in 10 respondents (78%) indicated that potential visibility gaps or blind spots, such as public cloud, SaaS and endpoints, could slow detection or investigation of malicious activity highlighting a lack of cross-environment visibility as another major incident response hurdle. Public cloud tops the list of blind spots (90%) with 84% pointing to IT vulnerabilities as a worrisome bridge into OT/ICS environments.
These blind spots risk persistent attacker access and increase the risk of repeat incidents. More than two thirds (76%) of respondents report their organization faced at least one cyber attack in the last 12 months and more than one third (32%) report having experienced more than one. The impact of such cyber attacks over the last 12 months includes:
- Operational shutdown (47%)
- Data loss (41%)
- Reputational damage (41%)
- Lost revenue (40%)
Where the Threats Are
Cyber attacks are common across all sectors, but highest in crypto and decentralized finance (83%), retail (79%) and manufacturing (76%). Security decision makers are concerned about a wide range of security threats with ransomware attacks being a leading concern (46%), followed by cloud environment breaches (44%). However, the variety of threats concerning respondents, from email compromise (37%) to data theft (37%) to supply chain compromise (35%), demonstrates an immense and ever-expanding threat surface. This makes a more strategic and concerted effort in incident response readiness more critical than ever.
“With AI widening the attack surface, reducing time from initial compromise to impact, and expanding breach exposure time, today’s cyber threat landscape demands that organizations be in a continuous state of preparedness as attackers are innovating, scaling and finding new ways to infiltrate, disrupt and extort organizations of all sorts and at all times,” added Segal. “However, strengthening detection and response capabilities alone won’t resolve the visibility and coordination breakdowns we’re seeing stall decision making and containment. Organizations should consider revisiting their approach on a regular basis, including both the use of AI in their cyber defense program and securing AI-driven technology and initiatives, to ensure they have a cross-functional, proactive team in place with visibility across IT/OT and cloud environments, and deep expertise in complex incidents.”
Automating IR
Today, almost a third of organizations report extensive AI use across most or all threat detection and IR activities, up from 25% last year. By 2027, momentum is expected to accelerate further – up to 63% – with AI shifting from a bolt-on to a baseline capability in day-to-day security operations.
In practice, AI delivers most value when it strengthens IR foundations rather than replaces it. Those with moderate or extensive AI use are more likely to rate their IR elements, including documented plans, 24/7 monitoring, and digital forensics, as effective, compared to those using AI in a limited way. This suggests IR readiness improves when AI is embedded into workflows, not when teams default to automation as a substitute for human judgement.
Sygnia’s analysis of AI integration across organizations finds that although AI has become a strategic priority, the rate of adoption of AI cybersecurity solutions outpaces the consideration of security implications, making AI a new attack vector that threat actors can abuse through LLM poisoning, deep fakes and more. Effective AI risk management requires a structured approach that combines governance, regulatory compliance, oversight, secure adoption strategies, and ongoing AI tool lifecycle management to prevent AI solutions from becoming weak points.
Improving IR Success
The findings of Sygnia’s 2026 CISO Survey underscore that while most organizations have foundational IR components in place, these components are not delivering as intended with organizational challenges preventing IR strategies from being executed with a unified response.
In the report’s conclusion, Sygnia outlines a set of recommended practical actions for organizations to proactively strengthen their IR planning, such as prioritizing executive alignment and cross-team coordination through simulations, closing visibility gaps between environments, and shoring up key partner support to be at the ready when disaster strikes.
To read Sygnia’s full 2026 CISO Survey, visit the website here.
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