Your 2026 Cybersecurity Checklist: What Every Business Should Prioritise in Q1 

The mistake we see most often is trying to do everything at once. The organisations that make real progress are the ones that use Q1 to reset priorities, focus on fundamentals, and align security activity to real risk.

This checklist isn’t about adding tools or chasing headlines. It’s about setting the right foundations early in the year so security programmes are defensible, measurable, and resilient.

1. Re-establish visibility across your environment

Before improving security, you need an accurate view of what you’re protecting.

By Q1 2026, most organisations are dealing with sprawling environments cloud platforms, SaaS applications, remote endpoints, third-party integrations. If visibility is fragmented, risk decisions are being made on assumptions rather than evidence.

Key questions to answer early:

• Do we know what assets we’re responsible for today?

• Are vulnerabilities identified continuously or only during assessments?

• Can we see changes as they happen?

Improving visibility doesn’t mean boiling the ocean. It means ensuring there are no blind spots where issues can quietly build until they become incidents.

2. Validate that controls work in practice, not just on paper

Policies, certifications, and frameworks are important but they don’t guarantee real-world security.

Q1 is the right time to validate whether existing controls hold up under realistic conditions. This includes:

• Testing external and internal exposure

• Reviewing cloud configurations and permissions

• Confirming that remediation processes actually close issues

This is where many organisations discover the gap between intended security and operational security. Finding those gaps early prevents unpleasant surprises later in the year.

3. Strengthen identity and access management

Identity remains one of the most common root causes of security incidents and it continues to be underestimated.

As businesses scale, access tends to accumulate quietly: old accounts, excessive permissions, unmanaged service credentials. By 2026, attackers increasingly rely on abusing legitimate access rather than exploiting technical vulnerabilities.

Q1 priorities should include:

• Reviewing privileged access

• Ensuring MFA coverage is consistent

• Removing stale or unnecessary accounts

• Understanding how access is granted, reviewed, and revoked

Small identity gaps have a habit of turning into big incidents.

4. Move from point-in-time testing to continuous insight

Annual testing alone is no longer enough. Environments change too quickly, and risk doesn’t wait for scheduled assessments.

Organisations that mature fastest in 2026 are those that combine deep testing with ongoing monitoring. This approach allows teams to:

• Identify new issues as they appear

• Track whether remediation is effective

• Reduce repeat findings

• Build confidence between formal reviews

Continuous insight doesn’t replace penetration testing it ensures the results remain relevant.

5. Review incident response readiness before you need it

Many incident response plans look good until they’re tested.

Q1 is the ideal time to review whether:

• Roles and escalation paths are clearly understood

• Reporting timelines align with regulatory expectations

• Technical and non-technical teams know what to do

• Decisions can be evidenced after the fact

With increased regulatory focus on resilience and response, organisations are expected not just to prevent incidents, but to handle them effectively when they occur.

6. Align security activity to evidence and assurance needs

Boards, auditors, customers, and regulators are all asking similar questions:
How do you know your controls are working?

In 2026, confidence comes from evidence. That means being able to show:

• What risks exist

• What actions have been taken

• What has improved over time

• Where ownership sits

Q1 is the right time to ensure security reporting supports these conversations, rather than scrambling to assemble answers later.

Focus early to avoid firefighting later

Strong security programmes aren’t built in reaction to incidents or audits they’re built through steady, focused progress.

By using Q1 to prioritise visibility, validation, identity, continuous insight, and response readiness, organisations put themselves in a far stronger position for the year ahead.

At Bulletproof, we help organisations cut through noise and focus on what genuinely reduces risk building security programmes that are practical, defensible, and resilient by design.