Business

Cybersecurity professionals under pressure turn to AI amid rising threats

Published

4 months ago

September 29, 2025

Good morning. Cyberattacks are a top concern for CFOs. However, cybersecurity professionals are feeling increased stress due to the complexity of the threat landscape and ongoing risks.

In a new report shared with CFO Daily, ISACA—a global association for IT governance, security, risk, and audit professionals—surveyed more than 3,800 cybersecurity experts. Two-thirds said their roles are more stressful than five years ago, and 63% named the complexity of today’s landscape as the top stressor. Nearly half (47%) cited high stress as the primary reason for attrition.

The survey found that 43% of respondents believe an attack on their organization is likely in the next year, yet just 41% are confident in their teams’ incident-response capabilities. Additionally, 39% believe cybercrime is underreported, even when reporting is required.

The most common type of attack is social engineering (44%)—manipulation techniques that trick individuals into giving up confidential information—followed by 37% who noted exploited vulnerabilities (flaws or weaknesses in software, hardware, or network systems) and 36% said malware (malicious software or code). About one-third of cybersecurity professionals still reported an increase in incidents this year, according to the report.

“Cybersecurity professionals are navigating an increasingly complex threat landscape, marked by the rapid evolution of threats and an increase in both the frequency and sophistication of attacks,” Chris McGowan, ISACA principal for information security professional practices, said in a statement.

McGowan noted an anticipated rise in cyberattacks next year would put even more pressure on cybersecurity teams, emphasizing the importance of regularly reviewing support systems and training to strengthen skills and resilience. Companies must not only improve their defenses, but also prioritize the well-being of their cybersecurity teams, he added.

The stress is worsened by persistent understaffing, with 55% of cybersecurity teams short-staffed and 65% having unfilled roles. Fewer organizations are training non-security staff to move into cybersecurity positions.

Turning to AI for defense

“AI has proven valuable in strengthening defenses,” according to Aparna Achanta, a security leader at IBM Consulting. Machine learning helps detect anomalies at scale, while automation reduces analysts’ workload by triaging alerts and speeding up responses, Achanta told ISACA.

Meanwhile, predictive models highlight attack risks, and in security operations centers, AI improves event correlation and investigation, she said. Experts caution that human oversight is needed to avoid bias, blind spots, and errors in decision-making, Achanta added.

Respondents report increased use of AI in their work and a larger role in AI policy at their organizations. Almost half (47%) said they helped develop AI governance practices (up from 35% last year), and 40% were involved in AI implementation (up from 29%). The top uses of AI in security operations are threat detection, endpoint security, and automating routine tasks.

In cybersecurity, adaptation isn’t optional—it’s survival.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Leaderboard

Kerry Jackson was appointed EVP and CFO of Shoe Carnival, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCVL), a footwear and accessories retailer, effective Sept. 28. Jackson rejoined Shoe Carnival in June 2025 as SVP o new business development after retiring in May 2023. He previously served as the company’s CFO for 27 years and has been with Shoe Carnival for a total of 35 years. Patrick C. Edwards, who has served as SVP and CFO since 2023, will assume the role of SVP, treasurer.

Naveen Kumar Amar was appointed CFO of SS Innovations International, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSII), a surgical robotic technologies provider, effective Sept. 24. Amar replaces Vishwa Srivastava, who has served as the company’s interim CFO since July 2025. Srivastava will continue in his capacity as the CEO—Asia Pacific. Amar brings to SS Innovations more than 25 years of global finance leadership experience.

Big Deal

CFOs are turning volatility into growth in working capital, according to new research by Visa. The company’s third annual Growth Corporates Working Capital Index draws on insights from more than 1,400 CFOs and treasurers globally at mid-sized firms—defined as companies with annual revenues between $50 million and $1 billion.

Modern CFOs and treasurers are proactively using working capital to unlock trapped cash, pursue market opportunities, and invest in strategic initiatives, even in uncertain economic times, according to Ben Ellis, global head of large and middle markets for Visa Commercial Solutions.

“This shift means that instead of letting resources sit idle, companies leverage solutions like faster supplier payments, inventory optimization, and better payment terms to generate additional value and support growth,” Ellis told CFO Daily. When managed with modern tools and strategies, working capital directly contributes to operational efficiency, agility, and expansion, making it a key driver of business growth.

The CFOs and treasurers surveyed fall into two categories: adaptable accelerators—who use working capital solutions to manage volatility—and strategic planners—who see working capital as a tool for expansion. Strategic planners focus on growth and investment, rather than just covering short-term cash gaps, Ellis explained.

The data show that this approach results in higher operational efficiency, greater supplier integration, improved liquidity, and enhanced resilience during volatility. “Organizations led by strategic planners consistently outperform their peers in these areas, making them better positioned to drive sustained value,” he said.

Going deeper

The two startups, Kalshi and Polymarket, generated huge buzz by accurately predicting the 2024 election results. However, their young founders still face long odds. “‘Investors are betting big on prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket—will the gamble pay off?’” a new Fortune feature article by Jeff John Roberts offers a deep dive into why investors are backing these companies.

“The biggest risk hanging over the industry is a basic business question: Can sites like Kalshi and Polymarket generate sustained interest—and revenue—outside of the once-in-four-years presidential contest?” Roberts writes.

Overheard

“AI isn’t just another tool to optimize today’s workflows. It’s a force multiplier that rewrites what problems are even worth solving.”

—Mike Hoffman, the chief executive officer of the growth advisory, SBI, writes in a Fortune opinion piece. “Right now, CEOs are both bullish and anxious. Some are hiring for AI-powered roles,” Hoffman explains. “Others are cutting headcount in anticipation of efficiency gains. Some are doing both. This is understandable, but it misses the bigger picture.”

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Business

Trust has become the crisis CEOs can’t ignore at Davos, as new data show 70% of people turning more ‘insular’

Published

18 minutes ago

January 20, 2026

Jace Porter

Everywhere you turn in Davos this year, people are talking about trust. And there’s no one who knows trust better than Richard Edelman. Back in 1999, Edelman was on the cusp of taking over the PR firm founded by his father Daniel. Spurred by the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, he decided to try and measure the level of trust in NGOs compared with business, government and media, Edelman surveyed 1,300 thought leaders in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Australia, and the Edelman Trust Barometer was born.

While the survey sample long ago expanded beyond elites to include about 34,000 respondents in 28 nations, its results are still unveiled and debated every year at the ultimate gathering of elites: the World Economic Forum. This year’s findings are grim: About 70% of respondents now have an “insular” mindset: they don’t want to talk to, work for, or even be in the same space with anyone who doesn’t share their world view. And “a sense of grievance” permeates the business world, Edelman finds. At Davos, debating such findings have spawned a series of dinners, panels, cocktails and media briefings on site. What better place to bring people together than the world’s most potent village green?

I moderated a CEO salon dinner with about three dozen leaders last night to discuss what they’re seeing and doing when it comes to building trust. Before the dinner, I asked Edelman what he’d like to see this year, after 26 winters of highlighting the erosion of trust. “Urgency,” he said. “A sense that time is running out.”

Because the gathering itself was held under the Chatham House rule, I won’t share names and direct quotes. But the focus was on how attendees are trying to address the problem through what Edelman calls “trust brokering,” or finding common ground through practices from nonjudgemental communications to “polynational’ business models that invest in long-term local relationships. (See the report for more information.) There were some success stories from the front lines of college campuses, politics and industries caught in a crossfire of misinformation.

Still, the mood was somewhat subdued, with a sense that there’s no easy fix to building trust. As one CEO pointed out, rarely have leaders faced such a confluence of geopolitical crises, tech shifts, economic divides, disinformation, job disruption and wicked problems. And as much as Davos is a great gathering ground to talk through all of these problems, the fact is the problems will all still be waiting once these CEOs return from the mountains.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Business

History says there’s a 90% chance that Trump’s party will lose seats in the midterm elections. It also says there’s a 100% chance

Published

49 minutes ago

January 20, 2026

Jace Porter

Now that the 2026 midterm elections are less than a year away, public interest in where things stand is on the rise. Of course, in a democracy no one knows the outcome of an election before it takes place, despite what the pollsters may predict.

Nevertheless, it is common for commentators and citizens to revisit old elections to learn what might be coming in the ones that lie ahead.

The historical lessons from modern midterm congressional elections are not favorable for Republicans today.

Most of the students I taught in American government classes for over 40 years knew that the party in control of the White House was likely to encounter setbacks in midterms. They usually did not know just how settled and solid that pattern was.

Since 1946, there have been 20 midterm elections. In 18 of them, the president’s party lost seats in the House of Representatives. That’s 90% of the midterm elections in the past 80 years.

Measured against that pattern, the odds that the Republicans will hold their slim House majority in 2026 are small. Another factor makes them smaller. When the sitting president is “underwater” – below 50% – in job approval polls, the likelihood of a bad midterm election result becomes a certainty. All the presidents since Harry S. Truman whose job approval was below 50% in the month before a midterm election lost seats in the House. All of them.

Even popular presidents – Dwight D. Eisenhower, in both of his terms; John F. Kennedy; Richard Nixon; Gerald Ford; Ronald Reagan in 1986; and George H. W. Bush – lost seats in midterm elections.

The list of unpopular presidents who lost House seats is even longer – Truman in 1946 and 1950, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, Jimmy Carter in 1978, Reagan in 1982, Bill Clinton in 1994, George W. Bush in 2006, Barack Obama in both 2010 and 2014, Donald Trump in 2018 and Joe Biden in 2022.

Exceptions are rare

There are only two cases in the past 80 years where the party of a sitting president won midterm seats in the House. Both involved special circumstances.

In 1998, Clinton was in the sixth year of his presidency and had good numbers for economic growth, declining interest rates and low unemployment. His average approval rating, according to Gallup, in his second term was 60.6%, the highest average achieved by any second-term president from Truman to Biden.

Moreover, the 1998 midterm elections took place in the midst of Clinton’s impeachment, when most Americans were simultaneously critical of the president’s personal behavior and convinced that that behavior did not merit removal from office. Good economic metrics and widespread concern that Republican impeachers were going too far led to modest gains for the Democrats in the 1998 midterm elections. The Democrats picked up five House seats.

The other exception to the rule of thumb that presidents suffer midterm losses was George W. Bush in 2002. Bush, narrowly elected in 2000, had a dramatic rise in popularity after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The nation rallied around the flag and the president, and Republicans won eight House seats in the 2002 midterm elections.

Those were the rare cases when a popular sitting president got positive House results in a midterm election. And the positive results were small.

The final – and close – tally of the House of Representatives’ vote on President Donald Trump’s tax bill on July 3, 2025. Alex Wroblewski / AFP via Getty Images

Midterms matter

In the 20 midterm elections between 1946 and 2022, small changes in the House – a shift of less than 10 seats – occurred six times. Modest changes – between 11 and 39 seats – took place seven times. Big changes, so-called “wave elections” involving more than 40 seats, have happened seven times.

In every midterm election since 1946, at least five seats flipped from one party to the other. If the net result of the midterm elections in 2026 moved five seats from Republicans to Democrats, that would be enough to make Democrats the majority in the House.

In an era of close elections and narrow margins on Capitol Hill, midterms make a difference. The past five presidents – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden – entered office with their party in control of both houses of Congress. All five lost their party majority in the House or the Senate in their first two years in office.

Will that happen again in 2026?

The obvious prediction would be yes. But nothing in politics is set in stone. Between now and November 2026, redistricting will move the boundaries of a yet-to-be-determined number of congressional districts. That could make it harder to predict the likely results in 2026.

Unexpected events, or good performance in office, could move Trump’s job approval numbers above 50%. Republicans would still be likely to lose House seats in the 2026 midterms, but a popular president would raise the chances that they could hold their narrow majority.

And there are other possibilities. Perhaps 2026 will involve issues like those in recent presidential elections.

Close results could be followed by raucous recounts and court controversies of the kind that made Florida the focal point in the 2000 presidential election. Prominent public challenges to voting tallies and procedures, like those that followed Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of victory in 2020, would make matters worse.

The forthcoming midterms may not be like anything seen in recent congressional election cycles.

Democracy is never easy, and elections matter more than ever. Examining long-established patterns in midterm party performance makes citizens clear-eyed about what is likely to happen in the 2026 congressional elections. Thinking ahead about unusual challenges that might arise in close and consequential contests makes everyone better prepared for the hard work of maintaining a healthy democratic republic.

Robert A. Strong, Senior Fellow, Miller Center, University of Virginia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Business

What a Walmart CEO contender’s exit reveals about when to move on

Published

1 hour ago

January 20, 2026

Jace Porter

There’s no such thing as a silver medal in a CEO succession race.

In November, Walmart named U.S. chief John Furner as its next CEO, crowning him the sixth leader in the history of the world’s largest retailer. The decision also quietly closed the door on another highly regarded contender for the corner office: Kath McLay, Walmart International’s CEO and a decade-long veteran of the company. On Thursday, Walmart disclosed that McLay would depart, staying on briefly to ensure a smooth transition.

The sequence was swift, orderly, and entirely unsurprising to those who study corporate succession. Boards rarely say it out loud, but experienced executives understand intuitively that once a CEO is chosen, the long-term prospects for previously whispered-about internal candidates dim almost immediately as power consolidates around the new chief executive.

That’s why many of the most ambitious leaders in American business don’t linger after a succession decision. They move deliberately, and often quickly, because the moment immediately after a board makes its choice is paradoxically when a near-CEO executive’s market value is at its peak. The executive has just been validated at the highest level—close enough to be seriously considered for the top job—without yet absorbing the reputational drag that can follow prolonged proximity to a decision that didn’t go their way.

In that narrow window, the story is still about capability. Search firms and directors see a leader who was trusted with scale, complexity, and board scrutiny, not someone who failed to clear the final hurdle.

When Jeff Immelt was named CEO of General Electric in 2001, the decision concluded one of the most closely watched succession contests in modern corporate history. Among the executives developed as credible successors was Bob Nardelli, then president and CEO of GE Power Systems. Nardelli didn’t stay to see how it might play out. Within months, he left GE to become Home Depot’s CEO.

A decade later, a different scenario unfolded at Apple, but with a similar outcome. Retail chief Ron Johnson had transformed Apple’s stores into an industry-defining, highly profitable global business and was widely viewed internally as CEO-caliber. Apple’s board had long centered its succession plans on Tim Cook, and when Cook was formally named successor to Steve Jobs, it effectively closed the door on a CEO path for Johnson. He left soon after to take the top job at J.C. Penney.

The executives who leave quickly aren’t being disloyal; they’re being realistic. Remaining too long after a succession decision can quietly erode an executive’s standing, both internally and externally, as the narrative shifts from “next in line” to “still waiting.”

At Ford Motor Co., president Joe Hinrichs was widely viewed as a leading CEO contender. When the board selected Jim Hackett in 2017, Hinrichs left not long afterward. Five years later, he resurfaced as CEO of transportation company CSX. Similarly, several senior Disney executives left or were sidelined after Bob Chapek was chosen as CEO in 2020. Most notably, Kevin Mayer, Disney’s head of direct-to-consumer and international, and a widely assumed CEO contender, departed within months to briefly become CEO of TikTok.

There are exceptions. But they tend to follow a different arc.

Although longtime Nike insider Elliott Hill was not passed over in a formal succession contest, he was widely viewed as CEO-ready when the board opted for an external hire in 2020. Hill stayed on for several years and later retired. Only after performance pressures mounted and the company embarked on a strategic reset did Nike’s board reverse course, asking Hill to return as CEO in 2024. Even then, such boomerangs remain exceedingly rare.

McLay’s departure from Walmart fits the dominant pattern. By exiting promptly while remaining to support a defined transition, she preserves both her reputation and her leverage. She leaves as an executive who was close enough to be seriously considered—not one who stayed long enough to be diminished by the process.

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