Inside the 2026 risk landscape: Emerging threats reshaping internal audit and compliance

Points clés

• Cybersecurity is the top risk for internal audit in 2026. AI-driven attacks, ransomware, and cloud risk are increasing breach impact and audit expectations.
• Third-party risk demands continuous monitoring, not annual reviews. Vendor dependencies are a leading source of cyber and operational risk exposure.
• AI governance is a critical and widening audit gap. Most organizations lack controls over AI risk, bias, compliance, and shadow AI.
• Internal audit must shift to forward-looking, risk-based assurance. Audit teams are expected to reprioritize dynamically and support enterprise resilience.