4 Critical Threats Where Attackers Have the Advantage

Gartner analysts issued a call to action to bolster defenses against several emerging critical threats, such as deepfakes and prompt injections.

June 4, 2026

GARTNER SECURITY & RISK MANAGEMENT SUMMIT – National Harbor, Md. – Enterprise defenses for four critical threats are overmatched and in urgent need of improvement.

That's according to several analysts who spoke at the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit this week. In a session on Monday, John Watts, VP analyst at Gartner, highlighted deepfakes, software supply chain risks, prompt injections, and AI application compromises as the four most pressing threats for enterprises.

These four threats ranked at the top of Gartner's 2026-27 ThreatScape chart, which contrasts threat actor signals against the effectiveness of the attack against enterprise defenses. And in these cases, "the attacker holds the advantage," Watts said, because organizations' security capabilities and current solutions aren't yet up to the task.