AI Cybersecurity in 2026: your three biggest AI security risks

AI cybersecurity searches in the UK are up 550%. Here's what we're seeing with clients in 2026 - and three AI security concerns every SME should act on now.

AI model homescreen depicting the need for AI security

We stumbled across something this week, search interest in ‘ai security’ in the UK has increased by 550% in the last year. Which pretty much mirrors what we’re seeing in our own conversations - more businesses asking about AI risk than at any point in the seventeen years we’ve been doing this. It’s even led to more queries about businesses getting Cyber Essentials Plus certified and a recent barrage of questions about what the EU AI Act means for them, even though the UK has not yet adopted the legislation.

The last bit is really interesting, because the EU AI Act's main compliance deadline fell in August 2026 and any UK business placing AI-enabled products or services on the EU market is already in scope - with fines up to 7% of global turnover for breaches. And whilst Westminster hasn't passed an equivalent legislation yet, we’re pretty confident that a full AI Act will land in the UK, so we’re prepping for it before it lands, because we don’t want our customers playing catch-up when it comes to AI governance.

This blog covers the three AI cybersecurity issues we are actually seeing with clients right now. And why, if you are still waiting for something to go wrong before doing something about it, that approach itself is the problem.

Below are the key three AI security risks that we keep seeing.

1. The shadow AI risk hiding in plain sight

Research published this year suggests 66% of office workers at larger organisations are using AI tools without company approval. Among the SMEs we onboard, it is rarely lower.

The typical pattern: someone starts using a free AI tool to draft emails or summarise documents. Useful. Time-saving. Completely unmanaged. The problem is rarely ever the tool itself, but what goes into it - and in the age of ‘free trials’ this can quickly get dangerous.

When a staff member pastes client data, financial records, or employee information into a consumer AI session, that data is processed by a third party under consumer terms. In most cases it is a governance problem. In some, it is a breach.

The first step you can take is an AI data-use policy. It needs to answer three questions: which tools are approved for work, what can go into them, and who reviews that list as new tools appear. Most businesses we speak to do not have one, nor do they have the training alongside them - which makes it the singlehandedly biggest risk to your business that could see you whacked with a big fine if it breaches GDPR.

2. AI-powered attacks: phishing and ransomware

The tell used to be the typo. The off-phrasing. The "Dear Valued Customer" from someone who is supposedly your bank. But not anymore.

AI writes flawless English now (well, minus the odd em dash), and attackers figured that out before most teams did. We are seeing examples this year where employees receive voice calls that convincingly mimic their director's accent - not recordings, but real-time AI voice synthesis. The instruction is usually some version of "process this payment urgently." but a voice can be a lot more convincing than an email.

Your phishing training and security can’t be ‘can my staff catch this’ but instead it needs to be - what is the security process if my staff can’t catch this and how do I continue to prevent this to remove pressure from the staff. It can’t just be a quick online quiz and done.

Phishing doesn’t stop there, as it’s usually how ransomware gets in. And ransomware itself has changed. Attacks increased globally by 56% over the last two years and SMEs are the target of choice - not because they are the most profitable hit, but because they are the least defended. Ransomware-as-a-Service has lowered the barrier to entry: a sophisticated attack no longer needs a sophisticated attacker.

What AI adds is speed and targeting. Attackers can now map your supply chain relationships, identify the least-protected link, and build a campaign around it faster than any human team could manage. Cyber threats cost UK SMEs an estimated £3.4 billion last year. And because your business is also someone else's supplier, your exposure is not limited to your own systems.

3. The endpoint gap attackers keep finding

This is where we see the most preventable incidents. Modern attackers use endpoint detection evasion techniques - fileless malware, abuse of legitimate system tools, living-off-the-land methods - specifically designed to avoid triggering standard antivirus. We audit newly onboarded clients and regularly find detections that never fired because the tool was not properly configured, or signatures that had not been updated in months.

Patching is where this becomes concrete. The majority of successful ransomware deployments in 2025 and 2026 exploited known vulnerabilities that had patches available weeks or months before the attack. The fix existed. Nobody had applied it. Keeping devices, software and operating systems current is the single most effective thing most businesses can do to reduce their attack surface. It is also the thing that gets deprioritised every time there is something more urgent to deal with - which is why it needs to be someone's specific job, on a schedule, not a task that gets done when someone remembers to do it.

Break-fix is dead in the age of AI

The pattern we see after every client incident is some version of the same sentence: "we assumed this was someone else's problem."

Break-fix IT had a reasonable life when threats moved slowly, but that’s not the world that technology lives in today. AI-powered attacks build faster, launch faster, and adapt faster when they meet a defence. A break-fix response to an AI-driven ransomware incident is simply damage limitation after the fact, and for SMEs, it can destroy their business.

Proactive managed IT should be the baseline in the AI era; patch schedules, endpoint monitoring, conditional access policies, staff awareness training that gets updated rather than filed and forgotten, full cybersecurity built into every package. They are the floor, and they only work when someone is keeping them in place continuously, not revisiting them when the call comes in at 9pm on a Tuesday.

We have been making this case for years. The difference in 2026 is that the gap between businesses that took this seriously and those that did not is no longer theoretical. It shows up in incidents. In insurance claims. In the Cyber Essentials Plus certification now required to bid for public sector contracts - certifications in the UK increased 20% in the last year alone. That is not a compliance trend. That is businesses demanding proof from their partners - and their partners demanding it back.

What you can do right now

You don’t have to be a customer to get support with m3 Networks around AI - this is our passion and we want to help SMEs embrace AI and know the risks. That’s why we’ve created a fixed fee AI consultation - in-person or remote - tailored completely to your business. You can find out the full details here.

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