Papryon’s report, published October 3, 2026 and summarized by The Hacker News, organizes these changes into ten areas, including identity security, endpoint management, email and domain security, and AI-native security operations.
For a small IT team, that means checking the links between accounts, managed computers, servers, email domains, websites, remote access, and the people responsible for responding to incidents. The report describes vendor and industry perspectives; the specific examples below include findings independently published by Fortinet, ISACA, and Cisco Talos.
What does the 2026 Papryon report say about identity and access?
Papryon’s October 3, 2026 report treats identity as a central security boundary as cloud infrastructure, remote work, automation, and AI agents increase the number of accounts needing access. Its identity segment points toward continuous governance, least privilege, and stronger control over human and non-human identities.
The report identifies Keeper Security and quotes Darren Guccione, CEO Co-Founder of Keeper Security, who calls the use of disconnected identity tools a security liability.
ISACA’s State of Cybersecurity 2026 report, published September 22, 2026, adds another reason to review incident response skills: prioritization has shifted toward incident response as a vital skill, while AI governance and incident-response maturity remain underdeveloped. That combination makes it important for a small business to know which system holds its data, who can access it, and who can make decisions during an incident.
How should small IT teams handle devices and patching?
Papryon’s endpoint management section says distributed device fleets require continuous patching, configuration management, automated remediation, and visibility across Windows, macOS, and Linux. The practical goal is to shorten the time between finding a weakness and applying a control that addresses it. The report quotes Justin Talerico, CEO of Automox, who recommends patching what can be patched, mitigating what cannot, and governing endpoints continuously.
Connected devices need the same treatment. Papryon’s connected-device segment describes continuous visibility, remediation, and enforcement as essential as fleets expand. Shankar Somasundaram, CEO of Asimily, says identifying risk is only useful when it results in an enforced control.
Exposure management is the process of deciding which weaknesses matter most and how to reduce them without disrupting work. Rather than treating every finding as equal, Papryon says teams should map how weaknesses connect, identify who owns each issue, and choose safe remediation. The report quotes Yair Grindlinger, Co-Founder CEO of Surf AI, who describes discovery as commoditized and the work between discovery and remediation as the difficult part.
Fortinet’s 2026 threat landscape overview also places cyber resilience among the year’s priorities and notes that ransomware and supply-chain attacks are appearing as coordinated, multi-vector campaigns. Backups, restore testing, and a clear response path also need review.
What should IT teams check in email and user security?
Papryon’s email and domain security section says digital impersonation can involve fraudulent domains, DNS abuse, websites, and email campaigns rather than a suspicious message alone. Rahul Powar, Co-Founder CEO of Red Sift, describes email, domains, DNS, and certificates as trust decisions made across public infrastructure. A small IT team should therefore review both the email account and the public infrastructure that supports its identity.
The report also says AI-powered social engineering is making phishing, voice cloning, deepfakes, and impersonation attacks easier to create and scale. Its human-security segment describes a move beyond annual awareness training toward continuous, personalized simulations and risk-based intervention across email, voice, SMS, and video. Andrew Jones, Co-Founder CPO of Adaptive Security, says traditional awareness programs were not built for current threats.
That does not mean every small business needs a new training platform. It means training should be tied to the ways people and systems can be targeted, with a process for reporting suspicious activity and handling requests that depend on urgency or secrecy.
How are cloud systems and incident response changing?
Papryon says cloud attacks increasingly use stolen credentials, configurations, and cloud controls to move through organizations. Its cloud-security segment points toward unified monitoring across identity, endpoint, and cloud environments. Kartik Shahani, Vice President of India SAARC at CrowdStrike, argues that detection and response based on static risk models and batch processing cannot keep pace with the current threat landscape.
The AI-native security operations section addresses a related workload problem. Security teams are using AI to automate investigation steps, connect evidence, and reduce manual analysis, while human judgment remains responsible for interpretation and decisions. Paolo Cecchi, Area VP Sales, Mediterranean Region at SentinelOne, says AI accelerates, supports, and suggests, but does not replace human judgment.
Papryon’s telemetry section says collecting more data does not automatically improve visibility. Teams also need control over how telemetry is routed, structured, retained, and reused. Nicole Beckwith, Senior Director, Security Engineering Operations at Cribl, says effective programs in 2026 and beyond will be able to route, reshape, and reuse telemetry on demand.
Papryon’s human risk intelligence segment adds an investigative layer. It combines investigative expertise, digital attribution, and external intelligence to identify risks involving employees, executives, candidates, and third parties. Ryan LaSalle, CEO of Nisos, frames identity integrity as a new firewall.
Recent examples for small IT teams
Cisco Talos reported on July 28, 2026 that phishing was the primary means of gaining initial access in its second-quarter incident response engagements, appearing in more than half of them. The reported share rose from about one-third in the prior quarter, while attackers used QR-code PDFs and links hosted on trusted cloud platforms to evade defenses.
The same Talos report said authentication abuse appeared in 65 percent of engagements, up from 35 percent in the prior quarter. The reported methods included adversary-in-the-middle proxies, session-token theft, MFA fatigue, and self-enrolled devices. For a small business, this supports reviewing MFA coverage and enrollment records, session handling, and whether users have a process for reporting unusual approval prompts.
Fortinet’s 2026 overview says attackers are also using AI to bypass some security measures. ISACA’s September 22, 2026 report says organizations are adopting AI for security operations automation, but AI governance and incident-response maturity remain underdeveloped.
What ties these segments together?
Papryon’s ten segments point toward continuous, identity-aware operations that cover the full attack surface.
Consider reviewing how accounts, devices, websites, email, cloud services, backups, and response responsibilities fit together.
What a small-business IT team should check now
- Account and MFA inventory: Ask the IT provider or internal owner for a list of employee, administrator, shared, service, cloud, and remote-access accounts. Check which accounts require MFA, whether enrollment records are current, and whether former staff retain access.
- Access rights for departing staff: Review the process for removing access when someone leaves, changes roles, or loses a device. Include email, shared drives, administrator accounts, cloud services, websites, and remote-support tools.
- Patch status for managed endpoints and servers: Ask which managed computers and servers are up to date, which systems cannot be patched, and how those exceptions are mitigated. Include operating systems and internet-facing services under the organization’s normal review process.
- Backup and restore checks: Confirm which systems and data are included in backups, where backups are held, who can access them, and when the business last confirmed that a restore works.
- Email, domain, and website exposure: Review the public domains, DNS, certificates, website publishing path, and email authentication controls with the party responsible for them. Record who receives security reports and domain notices.
- Remote access and connected devices: Identify internet-accessible servers, remote-management tools, routers, cameras, and other connected devices. For each, confirm who manages it, what access it requires, and how risks are contained.
- Logging and alert review: Decide which login, endpoint, email, website, and server events should generate alerts, who reviews them, and what evidence should be retained. The report’s telemetry guidance points toward making collected data useful rather than treating volume as coverage.
- Incident-response contact path: Write down who to call after suspicious email, lost devices, account misuse, a compromised website, or ransomware activity, including the IT provider, domain or hosting contacts, and decision-makers.
What to do now
- Build one access list. Ask the account owner to identify employee, shared, administrator, service, cloud, and remote-access accounts. Mark each account’s MFA status, owner, and removal process.
- Schedule a device and server review. Ask the IT provider for a current patch and mitigation summary covering managed computers, servers, internet-facing systems, and connected devices.
- Test the recovery path. Ask when backups were last restored successfully and confirm that the test covered the systems and data needed to resume operations.
- Review the public attack surface. Check the domains, DNS, certificates, email services, website, and remote-access systems with the people responsible for them. Assign an owner for each.
- Document the incident path. Put contact details and immediate response steps in one place so staff can report suspicious messages, unexpected MFA prompts, account misuse, or a lost device without waiting for an ad hoc message.
FAQ
What does the 2026 Papryon cybersecurity report cover?
The report covers ten segments: identity security, telemetry management, endpoint management, human risk intelligence, exposure management, human security, email and domain security, connected device security, AI-native security operations, and cloud security.
Which vendors are featured in the Papryon report?
The report features Keeper Security, Cribl, Automox, Nisos, Surf AI, Adaptive Security, Red Sift, Asimily, SentinelOne, and CrowdStrike. Each represents a different area covered by the report.
What is the main cybersecurity shift described in the report?
The report describes a move from separate point controls toward continuous, identity-aware, AI-assisted security operations that cover identities, devices, infrastructure, email, cloud systems, and the wider attack surface.
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