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    May 27, 2026

A Compilation of Insights on Cyber Defense and Incident Response in an Evolving Threat Landscape

As cyber threats grow more sophisticated and increasingly are shaped by AI, companies are under mounting pressure to strengthen both their defensive posture and their ability to respond effectively when incidents occur. From AI-enabled ransomware and deepfakes to emerging risks tied to connected technologies and enterprise AI tools, organizations must navigate a rapidly evolving threat landscape while maintaining trust, resilience and operational continuity. This collection of practical articles from the Cybersecurity Law Report examines key threat vectors, lessons learned from real-world breaches and critical considerations for incident response in high-stakes scenarios. Drawing on expert analysis and recent developments, it offers actionable guidance to help legal, compliance and security professionals anticipate risks, respond decisively and build more resilient cybersecurity programs.

Understanding and Mitigating Six Key Cyber Threats

As a follow-up to its 2026 Global Threat Report, CrowdStrike published a cybersecurity playbook (Playbook) with lessons drawn from the past year’s key cyber threats. The Playbook focuses on six common risk areas, including AI, ransomware, perimeter devices, supply chain, zero-day vulnerabilities, and cloud and software-as-a-service platforms. It explains common attack targets and vectors, how adversaries leverage vulnerabilities and how organizations can protect themselves with respect to each. This article synthesized the key takeaways from the Playbook.

When the Phones Ring: What 100 Security Breaches Reveal About Candor, Fear and Trust in Crisis

An analysis of 100 breaches and thousands of press reports shows that empathy and transparency, not perfection, now define effective crisis leadership. Far from being soft, empathy uncovers critical facts, builds regulator trust and materially reduces risk. When breaches hit, starting with humanity delivers better outcomes than aggression ever has. In this guest article, Lowenstein Sandler partner Amy Mushahwar and Intrepid Agency president Chris Thomas parsed their breach research findings, set forth the elements for crafting a trust-building response to an incident, provided guidance for putting those elements to work and offered examples of companies that got it right.

AI Agent Security Series

At many organizations, AI agents are no longer experimental. While use of this autonomous technology grows, companies are relying on immature controls to rein it in. Three recent reports detail multiple types of security and privacy breaches already occurring due to organizations’ inadequate policies, limited monitoring and failure to appropriately treat AI agents as risks in their systems. The first article in a two-part series on real-world security for AI agents examined the reports’ benchmarks of incident types, and the safeguards and security measures that companies so far are applying to agents. Part two provided an action plan for CISOs and lawyers to strengthen security and reduce risks around AI agents, with expert perspectives from agent security specialists at Barndoor, Gravitee, Gray Swan, Skyflow and ZwillGen.

Anthropic’s Mythos Model Forces Companies to Regroup for a New Cyber Era

Anthropic’s recent disclosure of an AI bug‑finding model deemed too “dangerous” for public release is forcing companies to rethink their cybersecurity programs and operations. Instead of releasing the model broadly, the company has convened a closed group of industry leaders across cloud infrastructure, operating systems, networking and finance to deploy its Claude Mythos Preview model in controlled testing of critical software. A week after Anthropic’s announcement, OpenAI likewise revealed it had provided a select group access to its own unreleased model for cyber testing and remediation. As AI accelerates vulnerability discovery and exploits, the Cybersecurity Law Report discussed the implications with legal and cybersecurity leaders from Akin, Alston & Bird, A&O Shearman, Cloud Security Alliance, Cyber Threat Alliance, Debevoise and Paul Weiss. This article examined how Mythos-class models may alter expectations for cyber programs and create pressure on existing vulnerability-sharing frameworks. It also outlined concrete steps CISOs, GCs and boards should consider as AI compresses vulnerability discovery and exploitation timelines.

Connected Cars: Addressing Cybersecurity Issues

The connectedness of today’s cars to the broader digital ecosystem introduces cybersecurity risks that original equipment manufacturers must identify and address. These risks include not only a data breach that could expose the intimate details of an individual’s life but, even more critically, threats to the physical safety of a vehicle’s occupants. This article provided an overview of the legal regime governing vehicle cybersecurity, examined potential vulnerabilities and offered best practices for implementing a cybersecurity and incident response framework, with insights from experts at Exponent, McDermott, Will & Schulte and Morrison Foerster.

Considerations for Improving Defenses to AI-Enabled Ransomware Attacks

Criminals are using AI to conduct cyberattacks and organizations are using it to defend against those attacks. Yet the parties are far from evenly matched. By all evidence, AI has exacerbated ransomware threats to companies, reported speakers at the 2025 Incident Response Forum Ransomware. This article synthesized the insights and recommendations of panelists from Cooley, Freshfields, King & Spalding and John Reed Stark Consulting on how AI has exacerbated ransomware threats, what organizations can do to counter those threats and the importance of public-private cybersecurity partnerships.

How to Create a Program to Combat Deepfakes

Deepfakes are not just another cybersecurity risk. They can strike at the heart of corporate credibility and undermine everyday business interactions. AI-based detection tech is improving and may help combat the threat, but is untested. Thus, a comprehensive program is needed to strengthen defenses and the response. With insights and recommendations from practitioners at Baker Donelson, DeleteMe, Fisher Phillips and Gartner, this article provided a detailed framework for mitigating deepfake risk and presented pitfalls to avoid in the battle against this pervasive fraud.

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Trailblazing Women – Contributions, Achievements and Observations of Outstanding Leaders

To mark International Women’s Day, Law Report Group editors, along with our colleagues across ION Analytics’ products, interviewed outstanding women in the industries and jurisdictions we cover. In this article, Jill Abitbol, Robin Barton, Rorie Norton and Megan Zwiebel profile notable women in the data privacy, cybersecurity, AI, private funds and anti-corruption law fields, including (i) Paula Howell Anderson, (ii) Gwendolyn Lee Hassan, (iii) Audrey Koh, (iv) Stacy Feuer, (v) Heather Egan, (vi) Jeewon Serrato, (vii) Stephanie Breslow, (viii) Anne Choe, (ix) Heather Wyckoff, (x) Angie Batterson, (xi) Jacqueline Eaves, and (xii) C. Dabney O’Riordan.

Enjoy reading their inspiring remarks here.