Case Study
Only 3% of Cyber Recovery Plans are Equipped for Frontier AI Attacks
An independent global research report surveying 3,200 IT and security decision-makers across 12 countries to evaluate why traditional cyber recovery playbooks fail during material breaches. It provides actionable benchmarks on overcoming flawed operational assumptions, defining a Minimum Viable Company (MVC), and preparing recovery architectures for frontier AI threats. Benchmark Your Recovery Readiness Against 3,200 Global IT and Security Leaders to Eliminate Flawed Assumptions and Build an Actionable Cyber Resilience Strategy
- Topic
- Security
- Published
- 9 Oct 2026
Modern cyber recovery playbooks were built on legacy assumptions: that attack scope would be static, dependencies would be mapped, and recovery would proceed in a predictable, linear sequence. However, rapid cloud expansion and AI-driven threat vectors have invalidated these premises. Cohesity’s global study reveals that confidence in cyber resilience strategies has dropped from 47% to 37%, while 62% of executives acknowledge their plans require significant improvement.
The report highlights a critical disconnect in enterprise resilience: while 73% of organizations experienced a material cyberattack in the past 12 months, 73% also admit their security budgets remain heavily skewed toward prevention rather than response and recovery. Furthermore, 76% of recovery efforts exceeded target Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), and 88% required on-the-fly improvisation. To survive modern attacks, organizations must pivot from basic system restoration to maintaining a tested Minimum Viable Company (MVC) and hardening AI workflows against emerging threats.
Key Highlights:
Global Benchmark Scope: Based on an independent study by Vanson Bourne surveying 3,200 IT and security leaders at enterprise organizations across 12 countries.
Declining Strategy Confidence: Executive confidence in cyber resilience strategies dropped from 47% in 2025 to 37% in 2026, with 62% stating their plan needs improvement.
Prevalence of Flawed Assumptions: 93% of cyber recovery plans rely to some degree on five unproven assumptions regarding scope containment, information clarity, and linear restoration.
Imbalance in Resilience Spending: 73% of decision-makers agree their budgets are weighted too heavily toward prevention, leaving response and recovery with only 34% of total cybersecurity spending.
Surge in Material Attacks: 73% of enterprises experienced a material cyberattack in the past 12 months, up significantly from 54% in the previous year.
Widespread RTO Misses: For 76% of impacted organizations, actual system recovery took longer than their defined Recovery Time Objective (RTO)-taking nearly twice as long on average.
Scope Creep & Improvisation: 70% of attack victims saw the scope of compromised systems expand during recovery, and 88% had to rely on workarounds or improvisation during a live breach.
The Minimum Viable Company (MVC) Advantage: Only 22% of enterprises have documented and tested an MVC model. Among those who have, 92% say it influenced recovery priorities, and 64% used it to directly determine what was restored first.
The AI Vulnerability Gap: While 99% of organizations utilize AI systems, only 39% comprehensively account for attack scenarios targeting AI workflows and models.
Unprepared for Frontier AI: 83% of leaders believe their recovery plans will require moderate to significant changes as frontier AI accelerates automated vulnerability discovery and multi-step intrusions; only 3% feel fully equipped today.
IT vs. Security Frictional Delays: 84% agree that operational alignment differences between IT and security teams delay crucial decisions about when systems are safe to bring back online.
Misplaced Recovery Priorities: 78% of plans focus primarily on restoring infrastructure rather than maintaining critical business operations, while 76% prioritize speed over verified system cleanliness.