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The past year was a landmark for AI proliferation, with sweeping implications for virtually every area of business and life. But with progress came peril. We saw cyberattacks explode in number and sophistication, outmaneuvering legacy security defenses to create record damage.

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands — The beachfront casino built here by a Chinese mother-and-son duo a decade ago was billed as a $2 billion investment, a resort bigger than the Casino de Monte-Carlo in Monaco. The giant, gilded Imperial Palace would transform this tiny American island’s economy, the venture’s investors said.

Recently, I asked several cybersecurity experts, including my colleagues here at PCMag, for their predictions on online privacy and safety in 2026. After all, 2025 was tumultuous, with scammers infiltrating social media platforms, hackers utilizing AI to automate various crimes-as-a-service businesses, and ransomware attacks hitting companies throughout the year. While not exactly surprising, most of the responses were pretty negative, to say the least.

AI agents are a force multiplier but that force cuts both ways. Our Rubrik Zero Labs research found that 98% of Australian security leaders cite identity-driven attacks as their top concern. With 99% already integrating or planning to integrate AI into identity systems, the stakes have never been higher.

Nearly all malicious domains are now unique to a single enterprise - a development Infoblox's Scott Harrell said undermines the traditional model of shared threat intelligence. As each attack becomes unique, the benefits of global threat sharing diminish. That creates a need to shift from a largely reactive defense stance to one that's more proactive in nature, Harrell said.

New research from Infoblox Threat Intel shows that parked domains—long treated as harmless and forgotten ad pages—have become a reliable tool for malicious actors. In largescale experiments, over 90% of visits to parked domains redirected the visitor to scams, scareware, illegal content, or malware, driven by abuse of “direct search/zero-click” ad systems.

Typing a web address directly into your browser feels harmless. In fact, it feels normal. But new research shows that a simple habit is now one of the riskiest things you can do online. A recent study from cybersecurity firm Infoblox reveals a troubling shift.

New research from Infoblox Threat Intel shows that parked domains – long treated as harmless and forgotten ad pages – have become a reliable tool for malicious actors. In large‑scale experiments, over 90% of visits to parked domains redirected the visitor to scams, scareware, illegal content or malware, driven by abuse of “direct search/zero‑click” ad systems.

A new research from Infoblox Threat Intel shows that parked domains – long treated as harmless and forgotten ad pages – have become a reliable tool for malicious actors.

Direct navigation — the act of visiting a website by manually typing a domain name in a web browser — has never been riskier: A new study finds the vast majority of “parked” domains — mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites — are now configured to redirect visitors to sites that foist scams and malware.