The Top 7 Cyber Threats in 2025
Listed below are 7 of these challenges that every organization needs to be aware of and plan for in 2025 and beyond.
1. Sophisticated AI Cyber Threats
The rise of AI and new generative tools is impacting nearly every industry – including cybersecurity. AI is now transforming both the nature of cyber attacks and the tools used to defend against them.
New AI-driven threats leverage generative AI and machine learning to deceive users and bypass traditional security measures. These include:
- AI-powered phishing campaigns that use generative tools to create more convincing emails.
- Spear-phishing tactics that rely on automated research for highly targeted attacks.
- Adaptive malware that mutates in real-time using machine learning to evade static detection systems.
Traditional malware is easier to detect due to its fixed code. In contrast, adaptive malware can change its code structure on the fly, alter its attack vectors,detect sandbox environments and adjust to endpoint security protocols. This flexibility gives attackers a better chance of infiltrating systems and avoiding detection.
In response, organizations are adopting AI-powered security tools, which use machine learning to:
- Detect behavioral patterns across networks
- Identify suspicious activity in real-time
- Improve threat detection accuracy while reducing false positives
- Enhance access control systems through context-aware analysis
The result is a more proactive and intelligent approach to defending against AI-based threats.
2. State-Sponsored Cyber Attacks, Disinformation Campaigns, and Hybrid Warfare
As geopolitical tensions rise, state-sponsored cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns are becoming destructive.
These tactics are central to modern hybrid warfare strategies, which blend cyber operations and covert digital influence with traditional military actions to weaken adversaries without direct confrontation.
State-sponsored cyber attacks often leverage AI-driven methods to:
- Spread disinformation
- Disrupt critical infrastructure
- Target government services and private enterprises
With the help of AI tools, attackers can generate highly convincing fake media that spreads across social media.
This enables foreign governments to manipulate public opinion and shape national discourse in other countries. A notable example was the surge of deepfake videos during the 2024 US elections, which went viral and contributed to widespread confusion and mistrust.
These attacks are typically more sophisticated than those executed by independent cybercriminals. Backed by state resources, they benefit from:
- Greater funding and manpower
- More advanced and targeted attack vectors
- Strategic planning aimed at achieving long-term political goals
The scale, organization, and precision of these efforts make them one of the most serious cyber threats facing governments and institutions today.
3. The Ransomware Landscape in 2025
Ransomware remains one of the most impactful and profitable attack vectors in 2025. Cybercriminals continue to infiltrate enterprise IT systems and encrypt data, demanding payment in exchange for restoration.
The success of these attacks has fueled the growth of ransomware into a full-fledged criminal industry.
One major development is the rise of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS). These ready-made kits, available on the dark web, allow attackers with minimal technical skills to launch sophisticated ransomware attacks. This has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry and enabled more widespread targeting of organizations with valuable or sensitive data.
A key trend in 2025 is the shift from encryption to data exfiltration.
Traditionally, ransomware attacks focused on locking data to make it inaccessible. Now, more attackers are stealing data and using the threat of public exposure to pressure victims into paying.
This dual-threat model increases the stakes:
- Business operations are disrupted
- Confidential data is at risk of being published
- Regulatory violations and reputational damage become more severe
4. Surge in Credential Theft & Infostealers
Credential theft is becoming a major focus for cybercriminals, with a rapidly growing underground industry built around infostealers – malware designed specifically to harvest sensitive information and login credentials.
According to Check Point’s State of Cyber Security 2025 report, infostealer attacks surged by 58% in 2024.
These attacks impacted both large-scale organizations and individual users, highlighting their broad and indiscriminate reach. Rather than using the stolen credentials themselves, attackers often sell them on the dark web. This has led to a thriving market where:
- Malware is deployed to collect large volumes of credentials and sensitive data.
- The resulting logs are packaged and sold to other threat actors.
- Buyers then select and exploit the most valuable targets.
This model is enabled through Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) platforms, which give even low-skill attackers access to a range of infostealer logs. As a result, the barrier to launching highly targeted cyberattacks continues to shrink, increasing the scale and frequency of credential-based breaches.
5. Expanded Attack Surfaces Due to Cloud Security Risks
As more organizations shift workflows from on-prem infrastructure to the cloud, they significantly expand their attack surface – creating new entry points for cybercriminals to exploit. The scale and complexity of modern cloud deployments make cloud security one of the biggest challenges facing organizations in 2025.
According to Check Point’s 2024 Cloud Security Report, the number of organizations that experienced a cloud security incident in the past 12 months rose sharply – from 24% to 61%.
This spike reflects the risks introduced by increasingly complex IT environments, which often include:
- Public and private cloud deployments
- Integrations with legacy on-prem systems
- Multi-cloud strategies with varied configurations
Key cloud security challenges include:
- Ensuring visibility across all cloud environments
- Properly configuring security controls between interconnected systems
- Maintaining regulatory compliance
In addition, API security has become a critical concern. Weak access controls and poor authentication can expose cloud services – and the sensitive data they manage – to external threats.
6. Edge Devices Creating New Vulnerable Endpoints
Edge devices continue to expand attack surfaces, creating logistical and security challenges for IT teams.
These systems, often not built with strong security in mind, must still be configured, protected, and continuously monitored. Edge devices include:
Due to their distributed nature and sheer volume, edge devices introduce serious security risks related to visibility and authentication. They are frequently targeted as initial access vectors in broader attack chains. One growing tactic involves using edge devices as Operational Relay Boxes (ORBs).
These are repurposed to relay communications across systems, forming covert channels that help attackers:
- Evade detection
- Maintain persistence
- Launch further internal attacks
In 2024, several high-profile botnet cases showcased edge devices being exploited in this way.
While state-sponsored groups historically targeted edge devices, they are now increasingly exploited by cybercriminals for financial gain – leading to a surge in attacks on private enterprises. To mitigate these threats, organizations should:
- Strengthen authentication and access controls
- Enforce unique credentials for each device
- Implement multi-factor authentication wherever possible
7. Continued Risk of Supply Chain Attacks
Supply chain attacks remain a serious concern, with threat actors targeting third-party code and widely used open-source libraries. By exploiting vulnerabilities in the software supply chain, attackers can launch large-scale attacks and compromise numerous systems through a single weak point.
In some cases, hackers implant backdoor access into the supply chain and maintain it over several years.
A notable example occurred in March 2024, when the Linux XZ vulnerability was uncovered – a multi-year operation aimed at inserting a backdoor into the open-source compression library.
To mitigate these risks, organizations are now:
- Placing more weight on the security practices and history of software vendors
- Including contract clauses that require real-time monitoring
- Demanding quick patching of zero-day vulnerabilities
- Avoiding dependencies on outdated or unsupported open-source projects
For organizations developing software, adopting a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) is becoming essential.
An SBOM is an inventory of all the code components included in a release, detailing their versions and licenses. With this in place, developers can:
- Quickly assess exposure when new vulnerabilities emerge
- Maintain better oversight of all dependencies in the codebase
- Strengthen overall application security from the ground up
How to Defend Against Emerging Cyber Threats
As these challenges show, cyber threats are more sophisticated while the attack surface they have to target increases in size and vulnerability.
Whether it’s cloud environments, edge devices, or the software supply chain extending the attack surface, a growing industry around various attack vectors enabling more threat actors, greater involvement from nation-states, or new AI-powered threats, cybersecurity in 2025 requires a proactive approach.
Continuously Evolve Your Security Posture
The job of security professionals is never done. It requires a mindset of continuous evolution and improvement to guarantee the best possible protections while also not significantly impacting user experience.
This includes understanding the latest threats as well as the technologies and strategies to mitigate them.
Assess your security posture regularly to look for gaps in coverage caused by misconfigurations, new vulnerabilities, or out-of-date strategies. An iterative approach that proactively looks for weaknesses helps minimize risk and keeps you ahead of threat actors targeting your infrastructure.
Incorporate Multi-Layered Security Controls
When it comes to cybersecurity, you’re only as strong as your weakest entry point.
So, you need multiple strategies and security controls in place to identify threats and protect vulnerabilities. Multi-layered security offers enhanced protection, presenting multiple barriers that hackers must overcome.
Examples include:
-
- Email filtering for phishing combined with extensive employee training. Staff will know how to identify any phishing emails that make it past the filter.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) combined with zero-trust access controls. Hackers able to bypass MFA and compromise an account still only have limited access.
- Firewalls combined with sandboxing. Any malicious traffic that gets past the firewall is isolated and observed in a sandbox environment to ensure safety.
Unleash AI Prevention and Detection Strategies
AI can feel like both the problem and the solution in cybersecurity.
While it enables threat actors to infiltrate IT systems more effectively, it also enhances the sophistication and accuracy of modern threat detection tools. By analyzing network activity, AI combined with contextual data can better understand user behavior and more precisely identify suspicious actions.
It builds a model of normal operations by learning:
- How users interact with the network
- What data they access
- Which tools they commonly use
When behavior deviates from these expected patterns, AI can:
- アラートのトリガー
- Automatically elevate security measures such as sandboxing, reduced access, or stricter authentication
These responses limit risk, improve alert accuracy, and streamline incident response—making AI a powerful force in both preventing and responding to modern cyber threats.
Secure Your Cloud Environments
As the cloud becomes the biggest security risk for most organizations, you need a security posture that ensures safety and consistency across a range of cloud environments.
これには以下が含まれます。
- Enhanced Identity and Access Management (IAM) to verify users and devices accessing cloud services.
- Configuring cloud services to maximize security and data protection.
- Detecting shadow IT and promoting approved services to limit unnecessary risk from unsecured applications.
Maintain Visibility in Complex Environments
With complex corporate networks monitored by multiple security tools, it can be challenging to maintain visibility. You must incorporate regular discovery processes to ensure comprehensive visibility across networks.
Integrating security tools using a single platform also helps eliminate visibility gaps and data silos.
フィードバック