A 2026 Perspective
This isn't a normal technical article, it's about our latest AI updates that we have on earth so far 4th week of February 2026. This article will not contain any sort of deep dive technicality, but rather we as CyberSecurity people what we are facing now and what the future may have, and just to note this is based on my personal analysis and what knowledge I have and what I see from my perspective. It's not a playbook nor a standard, just my thoughts because I need to write it so future humans may go back and see what we are facing now.
It may contain information that may need more deeper info or experience in sides that I am not specialized in or worked in, but I asked people around me and was there working procedures.
Anthropic announced Claude Code Security on February 20, 2026, a capability built into Claude Code that uses AI to scan codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggest patches. What does that mean? In simpler terms, provide a code, scan the code, check the patterns, correlate information, and provide a fully detailed report. In a day the whole top 10 CyberSec companies stocks have gone down.
In just a simple release info, 10 billion dollars have been erased from the market. Imagine the effect that has been.
I am not an expert in AppSec or even a beginner, but from what I learn or seen about that major, AI will impact that for sure. That means layoffs. Rather than working with a high skilled person and paying more, companies can go with mid people and pay half the price for that employee and have the AI as his main assistant that he can rely on.
Redefining Cybersecurity Careers
Going to the SOC where I specialized, and spent years of learning, countless days and months of investigations, certifications, building a solid knowledge, and even providing content for 200+ students in a blue teaming sessions, but at what cost now?? SOC L1 main job is to check the alerts, check its main info, make a basic investigation and checks if he can close the ticket directly, or escalate to L2 for deeper investigation.
But now using AI model that is trained based on these threats, customer environment logs, and baseline it will be so easy to connect some AI model that will analyze the logs, correlate simple events together and provide a description that will lose SOC L1 role for 70%. Not just that, the automation process for isolation device, contact the customer, sending the emails, making phone calls, or even recommendations will be also based on the AI and automation side.
If we do the math, if I needed 8 SOC L1 analysts in a shift, I may need now 2, or even using the L2 investigator to check the information coming from AI and based on that investigate. That means of each shift I cut off 7 people, that means 21 people are without work.
Same idea goes to GRC. I am not a GRC enthusiast so far now, but from what I know, based on some standards, regulations and policies things are built. It's so easy to upload these knowledge Material to AI, and communicate with the AI as a GRC employee to provide things that you comply to and not comply to, and even provide a detailed report for the things that you need to work on. Same results, layoffs will come in this section also.
Not forgetting the AI Penetration testing based attack, a full attack that is generated by AI targeting companies and multi companies in a huge short amount of time, and knowledge that is being analyzed and have decision making in a super fast way. As if it is now a battle between the defense side that have built in AI and offensive side that also have built in AI. I don't have the much information regarding the AI attacks but that what I have read from multi articles.
CTF Aura is Fading
Let's go to the Capture the Flag Competitions. In the past I remember spending 4 hours to solve a medium OSINT question, and once solved I was feeling the aura of having the ability to explain it and how I solved it. As an OSINT CTF writer for the biggest CTF competition in Jordan in 2025, I needed more time to build OSINT question from scratch so AI won't be able to parse the data that have been published on the web, correlate information and then solve the question.
It's now harder for the author to write questions, and same the player to know his real level, as most of easy and medium questions can be solved regardless of the category that is played based on. That means to feel the aura, and actually being special in the field you need to dig deeper, meaning you need more time than before in order to be known. Isn't that a headache?
From what I see now, with all of these changes it's just a matter of time 1 to 3 years and the whole CyberSecurity industry will be changed. The same working procedures will be changed. Why? Because information now are more and more accurate and it may come till a point where we can accept the risk of AI mistakes as a balance of the speed and the amount of the money that will be coming back to the company.
Cybersecurity Work and Worth
From what I see, it's now harder for new graduates to enter the field as before. If in past years you needed the basics of network, bash, cyber knowledge, IT, and some basic penetration testing course, with digging into investigation and how to use SIEM, to get a job as a SOC L1, now you need to be the current L2 level within the university days in order to secure a job.
That means more time to study, more stress, and more effort put within a short time range in order to get a job, that also AI can affect in the future. Same goes to PT, GRC, AppSec, malware analysis, DFIR, and more.
I see that we need to study things deeper and at the same time, widen our knowledge. Example, don't just specialize within a topic and reach a high level in it. Yes it will benefit you, but imagine just an AI feature release and you are doomed. I see we need to go other related CyberSec IT categories and also deep dive into them, knowing more about DevSecOps, Architecture, Cloud in details, AI Pentesting, or even Red Teaming cloud or on prem. Why? For two main reasons.
One, I believe that all IT is connected and not single category is superior than the other so you will be having the bigger picture and how things actually interconnect and that will help you when working to think from different sides. And second of all and more important that you are opening multi new working opportunities if one is being affected you have an advantage to shift to the other one’s easily.
Cybersecurity's Uncertain Future
At the end I want to say, yes I am scared of the future of CyberSec. As couple years in the past, it was one of the majors that is so much needed in the market in the top 3 maybe regardless of the Role, and was having so much aura and fun to learn, but now it's different. You are studying things with uncertainty if that will be taken by AI, as the time and the effort that you put may be gone, or at least will be affected, and that is so much scary.
So yes guys, I don't know how much effort we need to put in, how much stress is going to be put. For me the next 6 months are uncertain, but I work based on the current news, probabilities and based on that I decide what course or information I want to deep dive in, and hopefully that article might help.
And Just to clarify that CyberSec will not disappear by AI, as AI may even open new CyberSec-AI new job opportunities or even new categories, and I don't think it will replace an entire section by AI, but for sure will affect that, and keep in mind, at the end of the day we need humans to review results, actions and be accountable for the actions that have been taken.
Just to note, I have written this article all from scratch, and I used AI to check the grammar and vocabs only, as I needed to feel a human spirit, written and felt while reading. Just to close my article, I am not against AI, I use it every day hundreds of times, but day after day, with that huge advancements in AI, as from what I feel, things that in the past you saw as a real impact value are disappearing, as if you become the AI proxy between you and the other human that is also an AI proxy and both of you are sending information, getting information, correlating and even analyzing the information by AI.
From a human to human, Stay Safe !!