Cyber Insecurity in a Fractured World: Why Privileged Access Has Become a Strategic Risk

Cybersecurity has moved decisively out of the IT silo. It is now a core business and geopolitical issue, shaped by global competition, technological acceleration, and declining trust between institutions and nations. The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2026* reflects this shift clearly, positioning cyber insecurity as one of the most persistent and consequential global risks over both the near and long term.

The broader context is unsettling. According to the report, 50% of global leaders expect the world to experience a turbulent or stormy risk environment within the next two years, increasing to 57% over the next decade. Cyber risk is not an isolated concern within this outlook; it is tightly interwoven with geopolitical confrontation, economic instability, misinformation, and emerging technologies.

Cyber Insecurity Is No Longer Episodic—It Is Structural

Cyber insecurity ranks sixth globally in the two-year severity outlook and remains in the top 10 risks over the ten-year horizon, signaling that leaders no longer see it as a problem that can be solved through incremental controls or short-term initiatives. Instead, it is viewed as a long-term condition of operating in an increasingly digital, interconnected, and contested world.

What makes this particularly dangerous is how cyber risk compounds other threats. The report emphasizes that global risks are growing in scale, speed, and interdependence, meaning a cyber incident can rapidly escalate into economic disruption, societal instability, or even geopolitical crisis. For organizations, this translates into greater scrutiny from regulators, boards, and stakeholders—and far less tolerance for preventable failures.

Geoeconomic Competition Has Turned Cyber Access into a Weapon

One of the most striking findings in the report is the rise of geoeconomic confrontation, ranked as the number one global risk in the near term, cited by 18% of respondents as the most likely trigger of a global crisis in 2026. As nations weaponize trade, technology, and regulation, cyber operations have become a preferred instrument of strategic influence.

In this environment, attackers are not simply seeking disruption for disruption’s sake. They are pursuing persistence, leverage, and control. Privileged credentials are the fastest path to all three. Once attackers obtain elevated access, they can bypass security controls, disable monitoring, manipulate data, and move laterally across environments with alarming speed.

The report underscores how weakening multilateral cooperation and declining trust make coordinated cyber defense more difficult, pushing organizations to shoulder more responsibility for their own resilience. That places privileged access squarely at the center of modern risk management.

AI Is Accelerating Both Defense and Attack—Unevenly

Technological acceleration is another defining theme of the report, and AI stands out as a force multiplier on both sides of the cyber equation. Adverse outcomes of AI technologies show the sharpest increase in perceived severity over time, rising from near the bottom of the two-year risk ranking to fifth place over the ten-year horizon.

For attackers, AI lowers the cost and complexity of credential theft, privilege escalation, and lateral movement. For defenders, it increases the urgency of eliminating standing privileges, unmanaged service accounts, and opaque access paths. The report warns explicitly that governance mechanisms are lagging behind the pace of technological change, creating gaps that adversaries are quick to exploit.

Why Privileged Access Management Is Foundational to Cyber Resilience

The Global Risks Report 2026 makes one point unmistakably clear: resilience in this decade will depend less on preventing every breach and more on limiting their impact. Privileged Access Management is central to that shift.

Kron PAM directly addresses the structural weaknesses highlighted in the report. By removing standing privileges and enforcing just-in-time access, it sharply reduces the blast radius of compromised accounts. By vaulting and rotating credentials, it neutralizes one of the most valuable assets attackers seek. By recording and monitoring privileged sessions, it restores visibility and accountability in environments where trust can no longer be assumed.

As cyber insecurity remains a top-tier global risk and technological threats accelerate, organizations that continue to treat privileged access as a secondary control will struggle to keep pace. Those that elevate it to a strategic pillar of risk governance will be better positioned to operate, comply, and compete in an increasingly unstable world.

Take Control of Privileged Access in an Uncertain Cyber Landscape

As cyber insecurity becomes a structural and strategic risk, organizations must rethink how privileged access is governed, monitored, and controlled. Kron PAM helps eliminate standing privileges, secure credentials, and restore visibility across IT, cloud, OT, and hybrid environments — enabling resilience in an increasingly fractured world.

Discover how Kron PAM can strengthen your cyber resilience and reduce privileged access risk.

*The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2026