Somewhere right now, a cybercriminal is setting New Year’s resolutions too. They’re not staring at a vision board about “self-care”. They’re reviewing what worked in 2025 and planning how to steal more in 2026.
And guess what, small businesses are their favorite target. Not because you’re careless. Because you’re busy — and that’s what criminals love.
Here’s their 2026 game plan, and how to ruin it.
Resolution #1: “I Will Send Phishing Emails That Don’t Look Fake Anymore”
The era of laughably bad scam emails is over. AI now writes messages that:
- Sound completely normal
- Use your company’s language
- Reference real vendors you actually work with
Phishing emails nowadays skip the obvious “red flags”. They don’t need typos to get you. They need timing, and January is perfect — everyone’s distracted catching up from the holidays.
Here’s what a modern phishing email looks like:
“Hi [your actual name], I tried to send the updated invoice, but the file bounced back. Can you confirm this is still the right email for accounting? Here’s the new version — let me know if you have questions. Thanks, [name of your actual vendor]”
Your counter-move:
- Train your team to verify, not just read. Any request involving money or credentials gets confirmed through a separate channel.
- Use automatic email filtering that catches impersonation attempts — tools that flag when an email claims to be from your accountant but came from a server in Eastern Europe.
- Create a culture where questioning is praised, not punished. “I verified before responding” should be celebrated, not seen as paranoid.
Resolution #2: “I Will Impersonate Your Vendors… or Your Boss”
This one is brutal because it feels so real.
A vendor email arrives: “Hey, we updated our bank details. Please use this new account for future payments.”
Or a text from “the CEO” hits your bookkeeper: “Urgent. Wire this now. I’m in a meeting and can’t talk.”
Sometimes it’s not even text anymore. Deepfake voice scams are rising. They clone voices from YouTube videos, podcast appearances, even voicemail greetings. The “CEO” calls your finance person and asks for a “quick favor,” and it sounds exactly like them.
Your counter-move:
- Establish a simple callback policy for any bank account changes. Always verify through a known number, not one provided in the email.
- No payment moves without voice confirmation through established channels.
- MFA on every finance and admin account. Even if they get the password, they can’t get in.
Resolution #3: “I Will Target Small Businesses Harder Than Ever”
For years, cybercriminals focused on big targets — banks, hospitals, Fortune 500 companies. But enterprise security got better and big companies became harder and annoying to attack. So the smart criminals pivoted.
Small businesses are now the primary target. You have the “goods” — money worth stealing, data worth ransoming, and you probably don’t have a dedicated security team.
Attackers know you’re understaffed, you’re juggling everything and that you assume “we’re too small to hack.” That belief is their favorite vulnerability.
Your counter-move:
- Stop being low-hanging fruit. Basic security measures — MFA, regular updates, tested backups — make you harder than the business next door. Most attackers will move on.
- Remove “we’re too small to be a target” from your vocabulary. You’re not too small to be a target… just too small to make the news when you become a victim.
- Get professional help. You don’t need an enterprise security team; you need a partner watching your back.
Preventable Beats Recoverable — Every Time.
You have two choices with cybersecurity:
OPTION A: React after the attack.
- Pay the ransom, hire emergency help, notify customers, rebuild systems, repair your reputation.
- Cost: tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- Timeline: weeks to months.
- Outcome: You might survive, but you’ll never forget it.
OPTION B: Prevent the attack.
- Implement proper security. Train your team. Monitor for threats. Close vulnerabilities before they’re exploited.
- Cost: a fraction of Option A.
- Timeline: ongoing, in the background.
- Outcome: Nothing happens — which is the whole point.
Think about it: You don’t buy a fire extinguisher after the building burns. You buy it because you’d never need it. Implement the same concept into your cybersecurity.
How to Ruin A Threat Actors Year
A good IT partner keeps you off the “easy target” list by:
- Monitoring your systems 24/7, catching threats before they become breaches
- Tightening access and credentials so one stolen password doesn’t open everything
- Training your team on modern scams — not the obvious ones, the good ones
- Setting verification policies so wire fraud requires more than a convincing email
- Maintaining and testing backups so ransomware is an inconvenience, not an extinction event
- Patching before criminals exploit vulnerabilities, closing doors before anyone tries them
Criminals are setting their 2026 goals right now. They’re optimistic about the year ahead. They’re counting on businesses like yours to be unprepared, understaffed and unprotected. Let’s disappoint them.
Take Your Business Off Their Target List — Book a New Year Security Reality Check.
We’ll show you where you’re exposed, what matters most and how to stop being low-hanging fruit in 2026. No scare tactics. No jargon. Just a clear picture of where you stand and what your next steps should be.
