This year the report highlighted the increasingly complex threat landscape and the corresponding escalating pressure on defenders to enhance visibility into and resilience of OT/ICS networks Organizations with strong incident response capabilities, defensible architectures, secure remote access protocols, and robust network monitoring are far better positioned to reduce the risk of a successful attack on the enterprise OT even in this increasingly complex environment.

In this report, we explore for you the emerging trends and predictions that shape the future of enterprise IT and Security. From the global implications of the cybercrime convention to the pitfalls of failed AI projects, the insights we offer will help you prepare for what’s ahead.

Business leaders’ bottom-line concerns often conflict with CISOs’ insistence on vital cybersecurity investments. The CISO-board relationship is deepening as they have more opportunities to engage on matters of cybersecurity and enterprise risk. CISOs’ regular presence in the boardroom and their counsel on enterprise risk will strengthen board confidence and alignment.

This year we find that cyber debt continues to build with GenAI, rise of machine identities, and increasing third- and fourth-party risks. This growth in vulnerable identities, boosted by the ongoing AI transformation and pervasive cloud computing, is a here-and-now threat ready to be exploited by bad actors with the AI-powered ability to execute at scale. Perhaps the only thing more disturbing than the emergence of deepfake videos is our collective overconfidence that we won’t be fooled by them.

Threat actors are augmenting traditional ransomware and extortion with attacks designed to intentionally disrupt operations. Amid these trends, we’re also seeing a multi-pronged approach in attacks, as threat actors target multiple areas of the attack surface. In fact, 70% of the incidents Unit 42 responded to happened on three or more fronts, underscoring the need to protect endpoints, networks, cloud environments and the human factor in tandem. These incidents involved large organizations grappling with extortion, network intrusions, data theft, advanced persistent threats and more.

The CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report is the industry’s preeminent source on adversary intelligence, examining the emerging adversary trends of the past year. The purpose of this report is to arm you, the world’s security professionals and dedicated cyber defenders, with the knowledge you need to keep a step ahead of these threat actors — and to never, ever underestimate them.

The IR case data is augmented with telemetry from the Arctic Wolf Aurora Platform and research from our threat intelligence team, digital forensics experts, incident responders, and professional ransomware negotiators. The vast majority of these IR engagements were initiated as part of cyber insurance policies, through our partnerships with insurance providers and privacy law practitioners. While cyber insurance is a valuable risk transfer option for any organization, it’s important to recognize that certain industries are more likely to have coverage than others, and that our sample cases will reflect this distribution.

This year highlighted the increasingly complex threat landscape and the corresponding escalating pressure on defenders to enhance visibility into and resilience of OT/ICS networks. This focus on simplicity highlights a critical point for defenders: effective implementation of the SANS ICS 5 Critical Controls remains the best defense against OT targeting adversaries.

The threat landscape is dynamic and reactive — a new technique empowers a previously unknown threat group, vendors swarm to mitigate that threat and create new technologies in the process, operators on both sides seek out new techniques or tools, and so it goes. Elastic Security provides mechanisms to detect and mitigate malware on all major desktop operating systems (OS). For these purposes, malware is any software developed to facilitate adversary actions, disrupt legitimate activities, or otherwise cause harm to a computer or network.

The findings provide insights into the current state of security for web-based applications and systems, and the potential impact of security vulnerabilities on business operations in high-risk sectors. The report examines how DAST offers a crucial complement to other security testing methods, such as static application security testing (SAST) and software composition analysis (SCA), and provides a unique perspective on application security by mimicking real-world attack scenarios.

This report gives a detailed analysis of key adversarial behaviors, techniques, and trends we saw in 2024, highlighting the escalating risks that non-enterprise businesses and managed service providers (MSPs) need to be aware of This analysis will empower organizations of all sizes to strengthen their defenses against modern cyber threats by giving them actionable insights into a constantly evolving threat landscape.

Our goal at Black Kite is to make sure you gain awareness of what is most relevant in the threat landscape going into the new year. The focus remains on understanding emerging vulnerabilities seized by cybercriminals, as well as target industries falling victim to breaches, stemming from a lack of due diligence. We studied why certain industry sectors faced higher susceptibility to an attack, as well as the most vulnerable vendors to the initial breach themselves.

For this report, Black Kite Research decided to approach the cost of a data breach from a new angle, to build upon survey-based data in a comprehensive way. The first half of this report provides insight into the 2,400 analyzed data breaches. The second half, the cyber risk posture deep dive, covers a thorough analysis of the 1,700 organizations that are still online and in business today.

This report highlights the real-world impact of these changes, offering 2025 insights and recommendations from and for CISCOs. With over a decade of analysis, Check Point Research insights come from unparalleled data sources that no other company combines. By incorporating incident response, dark web, and open-source findings, we achieve visibility in over 170 countries to reveal global and regional trends.

Hornet security’s cybersecurity solutions process more than 4 and a half billion emails every month. By analyzing the threats identified in these communications, combined with a detailed knowledge of the wider threat landscape, the Security Lab reveals major security trends, threat actor actions and can make informed projections for the future of Microsoft 365 security threats, enabling businesses to act accordingly. Those findings and data are contained within this report.

In this report, nearly half of organizations anticipate a threefold increase in the total number of identities, with machine identities squarely in the driver’s seat (but largely under-secured and over-privileged). This growth in vulnerable identities, boosted by the ongoing AI transformation and pervasive cloud computing, is a here-and-now threat ready to be exploited by bad actors with the AI-powered ability to execute at scale. In the last 12 months, 93% of organizations suffered two or more identity-related breaches.

In this report, we look back at the 900 million attacks we analyzed in the threat landscape of 2024. Additionally, we offer organizations tactical insights and strategic recommendations for improving defenses this year. From the financial impact of attacks to geopolitical tensions that lead to cyber warfare, cybersecurity is top of mind for enterprise and government organizations in 2025.

This year, we also delve deeper into the threats facing critical infrastructure, particularly within Operational Technology and mobile networks. With increased connectivity and the adoption of IoT and 5G, these systems offer an expanded attack surface that calls for comprehensive, cross-functional defenses. Our goal is not only to adopt the latest technologies but to do so thoughtfully, balancing progress with caution to secure a safer digital world.

Security services remained the top category for M&A activity across consulting and MSSP, followed by sectors including Risk & Compliance and SecOps / IR / Threat Intel. While companies have prioritized email security solutions for decades, analysts expect the email security market to grow significantly in the coming years. Advanced threats relating to phishing and social engineering necessitate strong email security to protect employee and company data from threat actors.

In this report, they we anticipate malicious actors will continue their rapid adoption of AI-based tools to augment and assist their online operations across various phases of the attack lifecycle. We expect to see cyber espionage and cyber crime actors continue to leverage deepfakes for identity theft, fraud, and bypassing know-your-customer (KYC) security requirements. As AI capabilities become more widely available throughout 2025, enterprises will increasingly struggle to defend themselves against these more frequent and effective compromises.

In this report our threat researchers have observed significant growth in the breadth, scope, and complexity of threats that organizations are confronting. While it is difficult to be certain exactly how much of this activity is directly attributable to the generative AI boom, we expected to see security leaders expressing concerns about a rise in AI-powered cyber threats.