How to Avoid Phishing Incidents in 2026: A CISO Guide

Disclosure: This article was provided by ANY.RUN. The information and analysis presented are based on their research and findings.

By 2026, most phishing emails will look legitimate enough to pass filters and first checks. Trusted platforms, clean-looking links, and delayed execution make fast decisions risky and slow ones dangerous. As a result, investigations drag on, queues grow during phishing waves, and confidence in verdicts drops

Read on to see how security leaders can regain confidence in phishing decisions and reduce investigation pressure as these attacks become harder to spot.

****Why Phishing Becomes a Business Risk in 2026****

In 2026, phishing will test how quickly a business can make decisions. Delayed verdicts leave malicious emails active longer, giving attackers time to steal credentials, move laterally, or trigger follow-up attacks. When phishing volumes spike, even brief delays compound into real exposure, missed incidents, and costly clean-up. What looks like a single email issue can quietly escalate into downtime, data loss, or regulatory risk.

****A Practical Approach CISOs Are Already Using****

Security teams that adjust their phishing workflow before 2026 are seeing clear results:

• Up to 3× higher investigation throughput during phishing spikes
• Faster, more confident verdicts, even for complex email attacks
• Fewer false positives, reducing unnecessary escalations and noise

The sections below break down the practical steps behind these results and how to apply them in your own environment.

****Step 1: Shift Phishing Decisions from Indicators to Behavior****

Static checks explain what an email looks like, not what it does. By 2026, phishing chains will be built around redirects, delayed execution, and trusted platforms specifically to pass early detection. That makes indicator-based decisions slow and unreliable.

Behavior-based analysis changes this dynamic. Inside ANY.RUN sandbox, the full phishing chain becomes visible as it executes, from initial link interaction to credential capture or payload delivery.

Fake Microsoft login page exposed in 60 seconds inside ANY.RUN sandbox

Interactivity allows teams to follow redirects, trigger hidden steps, and observe real behavior instead of guessing intent.

Without a sandbox, reaching a confident verdict often takes 20 minutes or more. With interactive analysis, over 90% of phishing activity is exposed in under 60 seconds, allowing faster decisions without sacrificing accuracy.

See how you can move from slow phishing investigations to confident decisions in seconds. Talk to ANY.RUN Team!

****Step 2: Ensure the Right Context is Available at Decision Time****

Seeing behavior is only part of the equation. In 2026, the bigger challenge is making the right call quickly, with enough context to understand impact and urgency.

Without consolidated context, phishing verdicts depend on fragmented intelligence. Information is spread across tools, arrives late, and forces teams to rely on partial signals. During phishing spikes, this slows response and increases the risk of inconsistent decisions and unnecessary escalation.

Sandbox-driven analysis solves this by attaching context as behavior unfolds. When phishing activity is analyzed in ANY.RUN sandbox, the threat is identified automatically, including the malware family or campaign behind it, and presented directly at decision time.

ANY.RUN sandbox labels the analysis with “Mamba” and “phishing.”

That context isn’t static. Decision-makers can immediately pivot to recent, real-world analysis sessions, seeing how the same threat behaves across environments already examined by 15,000 organizations and over 500,000 security professionals. Instead of relying on isolated indicators or delayed lookups, teams base decisions on fresh, shared intelligence drawn from active attack patterns.

The result is clearer risk assessment, faster approval cycles, and fewer escalations driven by uncertainty.

****Step 3: Automate Phishing Analysis to Scale without Added Risk****

Speed and context only matter if they scale. In 2026, phishing response can’t depend on how much manual effort a team can sustain during a spike.

Advanced sandbox platforms go beyond basic automation. Solutions like ANY.RUN includes automated interactivity, which allows the analysis environment itself to perform actions that would normally require manual input, such as following hidden links, interacting with web elements, solving verification challenges, or extracting malicious URLs embedded in QR codes.

Multi-stage attack discovered inside ANY.RUN sandbox

This matters operationally. Automated interactivity keeps the attack chain moving without human intervention, exposing behavior that would otherwise remain hidden. Tier-1 teams can reach confident verdicts faster, without needing to reproduce complex user actions or escalate cases prematurely.

The outcome is 30% fewer Tier-1 to Tier-2 handoffs, more consistent decisions across shifts, and a phishing workflow that holds up under pressure, even when volumes surge.

****Step 4: Speed up Triage with Rich Threat Context****

In 2026, the bottleneck in phishing response is no longer detection; it’s verification. When alerts arrive without context, teams slow down, second-guess verdicts, and escalate cases unnecessarily.

ANY.RUN enables fast alert verification by providing fresh, behavior-based data as alerts arrive. Phishing alerts can be enriched automatically with real execution details, reputation, and threat context, so teams understand what they are dealing with immediately without manual checks or tool-hopping.

This shortens triage time, reduces unnecessary Tier-1 to Tier-2 escalations, and helps teams move from alert to action with confidence. For CISOs, it means a more predictable response, clearer oversight, and faster containment during phishing spikes.

****Step 5: Standardize Incident Documentation without Slowing Response****

Phishing incidents don’t end with a verdict. They need to be documented, shared, and often reviewed later by incident response teams, management, auditors, or regulators. When documentation is manual, it becomes inconsistent, incomplete, and time-consuming, especially during phishing waves.

Sandbox-driven analysis removes this bottleneck. As phishing activity executes, a complete incident record is generated automatically, including behavior, indicators, screenshots, and threat context, all captured in a structured format.

Auto-generated report with gathered IOCs, TTPs, behavior details, screenshots, and more

This gives reliable documentation without delaying response. Cases move forward faster, handoffs are cleaner, and reports are ready when they’re needed without pulling teams away from active incidents. As a result, teams get better traceability, easier reviews, and stronger confidence that phishing response holds up under scrutiny.

****Stop Phishing Incidents from Turning into Business Impact****

Security teams that modernize phishing analysis see clear, measurable outcomes:

• Lower escalation rates, keeping senior staff focused on real incidents
• Faster containment, with fewer cases stuck waiting on manual verification
• Shorter exposure windows reduce the chance of credential theft and follow-up attacks
• More consistent decisions under pressure, even during high-volume phishing waves

Want to see how this works in practice? Talk to ANY.RUN team to explore how interactive phishing analysis can help your organization reduce risk and respond with confidence in 2026.

(Photo by Le Vu on Unsplash)