Preparing for the Digital Battlefield of 2026: Ghost Identities, Poisoned Accounts, & AI Agent Havoc

BeyondTrust’s annual cybersecurity predictions point to a year where old defenses will fail quietly, and new attack vectors will surge.
Introduction
The next major breach won’t be a phished password. It will be the result of a massive, unmanaged identity debt. This debt takes many forms: it’s the “ghost” identity from a 2015 breach lurking in your IAM, the privilege sprawl from thousands of new