Cyber Predictions for 2026: What SMBs Around Hamilton Should Actually Plan For

When the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security released its National Cyber Threat Assessments—first for 2023-2024, then for 2025-2026—the message was consistent:

• State-sponsored actors are active
• Criminals are well-organized
• Ransomware and credential theft aren't going anywhere

Reuters later summed it up bluntly: Canada's spy agency sees Chinese hacking as the most significant state-sponsored cyber threat, with Russia and others still in the mix.

On a different front, the Auditor General's 2024 report said Canada lacks capacity to deter cybercrime, with under-resourced enforcement and an estimated C$500M+ in household cyber-fraud losses in 2022.

So no, the cavalry is not coming. For SMBs around Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, and Stoney Creek, 2026 is going to look like this: more attacks, better tools, same responsibility on your shoulders.

Here's what I'd actually plan for.

1. Ransomware Stays, But the "Easy Wins" Keep Shrinking

The national threat assessments and surveys all say the same thing: financially motivated cybercrime—especially ransomware—remains a major threat for Canadian organizations.

But there's a twist:

• More businesses are turning on MFA
• Backups are getting better
• Insurance and regulators are forcing basic controls

That means the sloppiest targets get filtered out first. By 2026:

• Attackers will keep leaning on stolen credentials and "living off the land" (built-in tools instead of obvious malware)
• They'll do more data theft and extortion (threatening to leak data) instead of just encryption

What to do about it:

• Treat backups and MFA as non-negotiable, not "nice to have"
• Make sure you know which data would hurt most if leaked, not just locked

2. Identity and Fraud Attacks Keep Rising

The StatsCan survey already showed identity theft and fraud incidents rising among impacted businesses.

CCTX and other Canadian groups point out that data breaches and fraud losses are costing Canadian organizations millions on average—and hundreds of millions across the country.

Expect 2026 to bring more of:

• Fake vendor payment requests
• Compromised email used to quietly change bank details
• Fraudulent account openings using stolen business or personal data

What to do about it:

• Lock in strong payment verification procedures (call-back on known numbers, dual approval)
• Train staff to treat any change in banking instructions as suspicious by default
• Consider dark web monitoring as an add-on to MFA and strong passwords, not a replacement

3. More Pressure From Insurers, Auditors, and Big Clients

Insurers have already tightened cyber requirements over the last few years. Law firms and industry groups keep telling small organizations: if your controls don't match what you ticked on the form, expect trouble after an incident.

By 2026, I expect:

• Longer security questionnaires in RFPs and vendor onboarding
• More insistence on MFA, documented backups, incident response plans, and training records
• Some contracts explicitly requiring alignment with Canadian baseline controls for small and medium organizations

What to do about it:

Use 2025 to get your paperwork and reality aligned:

• Short security policy
• Training log
• Backup/restore documentation
• Incident response playbook

Make sure whatever you tell your broker or clients matches what's actually happening in the shop.

4. "Big-Company Tools" Become Affordable for Smaller Shops

Good news for once.

The same Cyber Centre guidance and small-org courses that were once mostly theory are starting to show up in MSP bundles and reasonably priced tools.

By 2026, expect:

• EDR (advanced endpoint protection) to be standard for managed devices
• Managed detection and response (MDR) services available even to 10–20-person companies
• Backup platforms with immutability (can't be altered for X days) baked in

What to do about it:

Push your MSP on specifics:

• "Is this basic antivirus or real EDR?"
• "Who watches alerts and how quickly?"
• "Are our backups immutable or at least protected from ransomware?"

Don't pay for buzzwords; pay for concrete capabilities mapped to what federal and industry guidance already recommends.

5. Regulation and Expectations Creep Closer to SMBs

You may not be a bank or a hospital, but you live in the same ecosystem.

With the national threat assessments, Auditor General report, and Cyber Security Awareness Month campaigns all pointing to the same problems, it's hard to imagine less scrutiny in 2026.

We're likely to see:

• More sector-specific expectations (especially in healthcare, professional services, and anything touching critical infrastructure)
• More "soft enforcement" through contracts and insurance
• Continued public campaigns pushing basic controls (training, MFA, backups)

What to do about it:

• Don't wait for a regulator to name-and-shame your sector
• Use the free Canadian resources (Cyber Centre, Get Cyber Safe, SMB guides) as your standard of care now

6. The Hamilton Reality: No One Is Coming to Save Your Shop

The RCMP itself has been hit by cyberattacks. The Auditor General says national capacity to deter cybercrime is weak. Threat assessments say foreign and criminal actors are active and motivated.

That doesn't mean panic. It just means:

• Law enforcement is busy with the biggest fish
• You're responsible for your own first line of defence
• Good basics still work

For a business in Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, or Stoney Creek, I'd walk into 2026 with four concrete goals:

1. Everything critical behind MFA (email, remote access, finance, line-of-business systems)
2. 3-2-1 backups with at least one tested off-site or immutable copy
3. Documented, tested incident response plan (even if it's just a few pages)
4. Regular, short staff training and phishing simulations, tracked and repeatable

No shiny predictions, no sci-fi. Just reading what Ottawa already published, watching what's hitting Canadian businesses, and making sure you're not the lowest-hanging fruit off the LINC.