As we navigate through 2025, cybersecurity challenges will continue to test the resilience of businesses worldwide. Those who are prepared will thrive, while those who aren’t will fall behind.
In this article, we had the opportunity to consult with several leaders in the cybersecurity industry. Below, we highlight the key trends these experts believe will shape the cybersecurity landscape in 2025. From the growing influence of AI to the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks, businesses face new challenges that will redefine how they approach cybersecurity.
1. Managed Security Services Explodes
“We will witness a significant shift towards Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs). This is as businesses deal with the increasing complexity of cyber threats in 2025. This will primarily be driven by the growing number of AI-driven fake identities online. Considering this, many organizations will find managing security in-house impossible, and security services on-demand will be the only alternative.”
- David Linthicum (Founder/Lead Researcher at Linthicum Research)
2. The Lines Between Personal and Corporate Lives Will Become Even More Blurry
“Hacker groups and nation-states will bring cyberattacks in 2025 that cross traditional boundaries and technologies to bring hacks that have never been seen before. For example, deepfakes will be used by APT groups to bring new ransomware attacks. Also related to this, CEOs and other CxOs will see an unprecedented surge in cyberattacks in their personal lives, which will increase CEO fraud against companies and governments. In this way, personal and professional lives will merge as never before for more executives.”
- Dan Lohrmann (Field CISO for Public Sector at Presidio)
3. Poor Design Will Intensify Cybersecurity Risks
“The concept of a security vulnerability will broaden in 2025 as attackers increasingly exploit products and services without technical flaws but with design features that can be misused. In the wrong hands, poor design can be as dangerous as flawed code. Bug bounty programs will need to expand beyond coding weaknesses to accommodate for features and use-cases that facilitate downstream cyberattacks.”
- Matthew Rosenquist (CISO at Mercury Risk)
4. Global Cybercrime Damage Predicted to Hit $10.5 Trillion Annually in 2025
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, global cybercrime costs are expected to reach $10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025, up from $3 trillion USD in 2015. This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history and is exponentially larger than the damage inflicted from natural disasters in a year. If it were measured as a country, cybercrime would be the world’s third-largest economy after the U.S. and China and will be more profitable than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined.
- Steve Morgan (Founder at Cybersecurity Ventures)
5. Threat Actors Will Exploit AI by Manipulating Private Data
“We are witnessing a fascinating convergence in the AI realm, as models become increasingly capable and semi-autonomous AI agents integrate into automated workflows. This evolution opens intriguing possibilities for threat actors to serve their own interests, specifically in terms of how they might manipulate private data used by LLMs (Large Language Models). As AI agents depend increasingly on private data in emails, SaaS document repositories, and similar sources for context, securing these threat vectors will become even more critical.
In 2025, we will start to see initial attempts by threat actors to manipulate private data sources. For example, we may see threat actors purposely trick AI by contaminating private data used by LLMs—such as deliberately manipulating emails or documents with false or misleading information—to confuse AI or make it do something harmful. This development will require heightened vigilance and advanced security measures to ensure that AI isn’t fooled by bad information.”
- Daniel Rapp (Chief AI and Data Officer at Proofpoint)
6. The Trump Administration 2.0 Will Redefine Federal Cybersecurity Frameworks
“The Trump Administration 2.0 will consolidate security regulations and reduce the number and complexity of federal cyber frameworks, policies and rules – especially related to the private sector. President Trump will issue an executive order (or directive) to create speed up multi-agency framework harmonization efforts for cybersecurity (or some cases eliminate conflicting policies). Within two years, a new Trump doctrine (framework-plus) on cybersecurity will be released – attempting to lead the world in a variety of cybersecurity and cybercrime challenges, including related AI initiatives.”
- Dan Lohrmann (Field CISO for Public Sector at Presidio)
7. The “How” of the Threat Actor Landscape Will Evolve Faster Than the “What”
“The end game for cybercriminals hasn’t evolved much over the past several years; their attacks remain financially motivated, with Business Email Compromise (BEC) designed to drive fraudulent wire transfers or gift card purchases. Ransomware and data extortion attacks still follow an initial compromise by malware or a legitimate remote management tool.
So, while the ultimate goal of making money hasn’t changed, how attacks are conducted to get that money is evolving at a rapid pace. The steps and methods cybercriminals employ to entice a victim to download malware or issue a payment to a bogus “supplier” now involve more advanced and complex tactics and techniques in their attack chain.
Over the past year, financially motivated threat actors have socially engineered e-mail threads with responses from multiple compromised or spoofed accounts, used “ClickFix” techniques to run live Powershell, and abused legitimate services—like Cloudflare —to add complexity and variety to their attack chains.
We predict that the path from the initial click (or response to the first stage payload) will continue to become increasingly targeted and convoluted this year to throw defenders, and especially automated solutions, off their scent.”
- Daniel Blackford (Head of Threat Research at Proofpoint)
8. Extended Dwell Time Will Become the New Normal
“The cybersecurity landscape will see a rise in “patient attackers.” These are bad actors; maintaining dormant network access for extended periods will drive this. The purpose is to wait for an opportune time to launch an attack. These tactics will drive organizations to go beyond traditional preventive measures. Approaching security will involve implementing comprehensive detection and response strategies, which most enterprises lack now.”
- David Linthicum (Founder/Lead Researcher at Linthicum Research)
9. Under Scrutiny, AI Will Become an Essential Part of How We Do Business
“A few years ago, cloud computing, mobile and zero-trust were just the buzzwords of the day, but now they are very much a part of the fabric of how organizations do business. AI technologies, and especially Generative AI, are being scrutinized more from a buyer’s perspective, with many considering them a third-party risk. CISOs are now in the hot seat and must try to get their hands around both the ‘risk vs. reward’ and the materiality of risk when it comes to AI tools.
CISOs are asking exactly how employees are using AI to understand where they may be putting sensitive information at risk. As a result, there will be increased scrutiny around how LLMs are powering AI tools. Just like food packaging labels (which first surfaced back in the 60’s and 70’s) tell us what ingredients are used in the creation of a food product, today’s CISOs will increasingly ask, “what’s in this AI tool, and how do we know it’s manufactured and secured correctly?”
- Patrick Joyce (Global Resident CISO at Proofpoint)
10. Data Governance Will Be A Critical Pillar for AI Integration
“Continuing into 2025, the integration of AI into products and the tech stacks across companies big and small, the question is whether or not these companies have considered the data governance that is so critical to implementing these systems. It is crucial to understand what data is needed to train/customize these AI systems and what data should not be used because it is old, stale, or not relevant to the output required from the system. This is especially important regarding private and sensitive information you might not want to be exposed to general audiences.”
- Christophe Foulon (Executive Cybersecurity Advisor at CPF Coaching)
Mitigating Cybersecurity Risks in 2025
The cybersecurity challenges of 2025 are already upon us, bringing unprecedented risks and opportunities to innovate. By understanding the shifts in the cybersecurity landscape, businesses can better prepare to protect themselves.
At Digital Risk Inc., we help businesses address their most significant cybersecurity risk: human vulnerabilities. With 74% of data breaches involving a human element and the lines between our personal and corporate lives continuing to blur, it’s never been more important to proactively mitigate human cybersecurity risks to protect the business you’ve built.
Reach out today to learn how we can help you stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape.
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