Cybersecurity leader SonicWall has just released their 2025 outlook, including the threats, challenges and trends that will shape the sector in the year ahead. Below, SonicWall’s leading team of threat researchers share their forecast including the key vulnerabilities and threats businesses need to prepare for now.
Hype around improving security outcomes using Generative AI will die down
2024 saw some great concept security demos using GenAI models by ChatGPT, Anthropic, Google, etc. We saw AI SOC agents, AI policy generators, AI security admins and more. If you were expecting to see these demos make production-ready security products, think again. In 2025, we expect the rubber to meet the road – while the focus will switch from making exciting demos to making AI work in real-world scenarios, operationalizing GenAI to consistently improve security outcomes will turn out to be a very challenging problem. Turning hype to production will take significantly more time and, in 2025, the industry will acknowledge that reality.
There will a major cyberattack that uses “Mission Impossible-style” impersonation enabled by modern AI
In the Mission Impossible movie franchise, Tom Cruise and team make use of advanced techniques – latex 3d face masks, voice modulators, adaptive contact lenses and more – to impersonate people, enter restricted areas and save the world from destruction. In 2025, new AI capabilities will make what was only possible in the realm of movies available to the mainstream. And, as with all such new technologies, the bad guys will be amongst the first to take advantage. Unfortunately, the bad guys won’t be using impersonation to save the world; instead, they will launch more sophisticated spoofing and phishing techniques to launch cyberattacks against unsuspecting civilian organizations.
Rise of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS)
Ransomware attacks will continue to increase in frequency and sophistication. The emergence of Ransomware-as-a-Service will make it easier for cybercriminals to launch attacks without technical expertise, leading to a broader range of organizations, including smaller businesses, becoming targets.
Proliferation of IoT Security Vulnerabilities
With the exponential growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, security vulnerabilities will become a critical concern. IoT devices, often with limited security features, will increasingly be exploited for launching attacks, resulting in the need for stronger IoT security protocols and frameworks.
Advances in Quantum Computing Will Redefine Security Strategies
In 2025, the intersection of evolving cyber threats and quantum advancements will redefine security strategies, pushing innovation and international policy developments to safeguard critical systems and data. The focus will be on anticipating hybrid attacks that combine traditional tactics with advanced technology, reshaping the global cyber landscape.
Detecting Attack Origins Will Become Increasingly Difficult
The line between state and criminal operations will continue to blur further, making it increasingly challenging to attribute attacks. This may prompt stronger international collaboration on cybercrime policy, but effective attribution will remain a core challenge. Governments and private organizations must adapt to this evolving threat landscape, focusing more on proactive intelligence sharing and threat-hunting to disrupt collaborative efforts before they impact critical sectors.
2025 Will See the Rise of Quantum-Resistant Cryptography
While large-scale quantum decryption of algorithms like RSA or AES is unlikely in 2025, targeted attacks on specific or older cryptographic implementations may become more advanced. Despite ongoing “quantum apocalypse” fears being overstated, developing quantum-resistant cryptography will remain a priority for researchers and organizations as part of long-term resilience planning. Governments and private sectors will boost investments in post-quantum solutions, emphasizing broader cybersecurity measures to address potential early threats.
AI Will Augment Cybersecurity Protection Efforts Without Replacing Humans
AI will be a defensive tool and a strategic force multiplier in 2025. It will enable organizations to stay one step ahead of state-sponsored criminals, adapt to quantum threats, and protect critical infrastructure in an increasingly hostile threat landscape. AI’s continuous learning, predictive power, and automation will continue to redefine cybersecurity without replacing the human element, making it essential for both offense and defense to embrace and leverage as a tool in their tool belt.
Reverse Trending
Although cybersecurity developments tend to start at the enterprise and work down to the SME, several growing small and mid-enterprise developments will increasingly trend up into the enterprise. These include:
1) Favoring opex over capex by consuming more security as a service or a managed offering rather than maintaining internal SMEs and making large purchases to continuously refresh hardware.
2) Favoring ease of implementation and management over best of breed by consolidating from numerous vendors to a small number of vendors that offer a platform approach.
3) Outsourcing or offloading IT and cybersecurity work by favoring service providers over traditional consulting firms or resellers.
Cyber Insurance and 24×7 Monitoring Will Become the Norm
After a short post-COVID dip, the number of cyber-attacks continues to grow at an alarming pace, but more importantly, the average cost of a successful attack is growing at a higher pace and is predicted to grow at a high rate through at least 2029 (the average cost of a data breach in 2024 is $4.88 million). This will put pressure on firms of all sizes to have cyber insurance in place or risk a potentially existential crisis; insurance rate differences driven by best practices requirements will in turn put pressure on firms to adopt 24×7 monitoring of their security infrastructure, such that MDR, NDR and other SOC services will become the norm, particularly as the number of vendors providing those services grows.
Automation
A recent study of 3,000 global firms by Accenture found that the share of cybersecurity-related AI patents increased 2.7X between January 2017 and October 2022. The growing number of cyberattacks, the growing number of attack vectors due to remote work and IoT, the increase in cybersecurity tools and telemetry and the resulting number of alerts generated by cybersecurity tools will require more SOC services and other security as a service, which will in turn drive the need for significantly increased automation to manage alerts, block attempted intrusions, respond to successful intrusions and investigate incidents at a daunting scale. Both cybersecurity skills shortages and simple economics will require a human + machine approach to cybersecurity.
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