88% Say Autonomous Cyber Resilience Can Cut Downtime Costs Substantially—Confidence Will Accelerate Adoption, According to New Absolute Security Research

BLACK HAT 2026 – Absolute Security, an Autonomous Cyber Resilience leader, today published the third volume in its State of Enterprise Cyber Resilience research series: Autonomous Cyber Resilience in the Era of AI. The report features results from a survey conducted by Censuswide that includes 1,000 Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) based in the United States (500) and the United Kingdom (500).

Among the top findings was that when endpoint devices become inoperable, downtime costs reach $19 million per hour on average. This level of loss is especially alarming when considering that 88% reported that autonomous recovery capabilities would enable a measurable reduction in the cost of downtime incidents, while only 4% described their organizations as “broadly autonomous.”

“Downtime is the real cost of a breach, it often exceeds every other related cost and is capable of permanently damaging a business,” said Christy Wyatt, President & CEO, Absolute Security. “With threat actors now leveraging AI and agentic tools to launch attacks and spot vulnerabilities at rates previously unimaginable, security and risk leaders are faced with either continuing to fall victim to costly disruptions or deploying solutions that operate with the same speed and efficiency as those being used against them.”

Revealed in the report are additional findings that highlight the state of autonomous security and recovery solutions in use and the trust challenges and barriers causing organizations to lag cybercriminals. This research suggests that closing that gap will require cyber resilience capable of detecting, responding to, and recovering from disruptions at the same speed as the attacks themselves. Among several top takeaways:

AI-ASSISTED CYBERATTACKS OUTPACE PATCHING. Forty-one percent of organizations experienced AI-accelerated vulnerability exploitation in the past 12 months, with 58% of leaders in agreement that AI-assisted attackers are weaponizing vulnerabilities faster than patching processes can address them.

TRUST IN FULL AUTONOMY REMAINS A BARRIER. For production-system autonomy, trust ranks as the top-cited barrier (38%), ahead of integration complexity (33%) and budget (18%).

ANTHROPIC MYTHOS HIGHLIGHTS ADOPTION CONCERNS. When asked whether Anthropic Mythos and similar tools presented too much risk for their organizations to consider using, 43% agreed, while 32% disagreed and 25% had no opinion. Further underscoring these concerns, 41% agreed the tools should be blocked within their organizations until more is known about how they work, while 30% disagreed and 29% had no opinion.

"Trust in autonomous solutions remains among the top barriers standing between enterprises and the recovery speed they need to minimize downtime. This research will help security leaders see the risk they're up against and give them the confidence needed to cross the bridge to autonomous recovery," continued Wyatt.

Get your complimentary copy of the report to read all results and insights from the survey: Autonomous Cyber Resilience in the Era of AI

To discover more about how Absolute Security stops downtime, meet our Cyber Resilience experts at Black Hat 2026, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, booth 5526.

About Absolute Security
Absolute Security is an enterprise Autonomous Cyber Resilience leader. The company is partnered with more than 28 of the world’s leading endpoint device manufacturers, embedded in the firmware of 600 million devices, trusted by thousands of global enterprise customers, and licensed across 16 million PC users. With the Absolute Security Cyber Resilience Platform integrated into their digital enterprise, customers enable their mobile and hybrid workforces to connect securely and seamlessly from anywhere in the world and business operations to recover quickly following cyber disruptions and attacks. To learn more, visit www.absolute.com and follow us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and YouTube.

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