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Now that we’re a good few months into 2025, we can start to take a good look at the security landscape and the areas organisations need to focus on to stay safe and keep ahead of the bad guys.

First up, why is 2025 a special year for cybersecurity? It goes without saying, at this point, that 2025 is shaping up to be a pretty uncertain year. AI has changed the game in terms of how malicious actors develop and deploy threats, as well as how security teams defend against them.

Why is 2025 a special year for cybersecurity?

Ransomware is on the rise, new threats are emerging all the time, and, if that wasn’t enough, we’re seeing a wave of global political conflict and instability that involves some of the biggest cybercrime entities on the planet, like Russia and Iran.

There’s disruption and instability going on, both online and offline. Your cybersecurity strategy needs to reflect this.

In this post, we’ll cover some of the biggest threats facing organisations this year and walk through some things you need to be doing to protect your assets, people, and data.

Which threats will dominate 2025?

Let’s take a quick look at some of the biggest cyber threats facing organisations in 2025 and why they matter.

AI-driven social engineering attacks

AI isn’t perfect, but it’s unfortunately extremely good at creating convincing fake material. One example of this is deepfakes, where scammers create video and audio clips pretending to be a trusted person to extort valuable information or assets out of their victims. There were 179 deepfake incidents in the first quarter of 2025 alone (up 257% year-on-year).

More ransomware

Ransomware continued to rise last year, showing a 30% increase year-on-year in active ransomware groups. This trend looks set to continue in 2025, and as AI becomes more sophisticated, we’ll likely see smarter approaches to ransomware.

Supply chain attacks

Here’s a terrifying statistic: Supply chain attacks surged by 431% between 2021 and 2023. Manufacturing companies are at the most risk, but the trend covers many industries. Organisations urgently need to get the right defences in place here.

5 things you need to be doing to stay safe in 2025

Now that you’re appropriately terrified, let’s move on to the slightly more reassuring topic of what you can actually do to defend against these threats in 2025 and beyond.

Adopt “identify-first” security

There’s a lot of talk at the moment about “identify-first” security. This approach to cybersecurity is based on a major shift that’s happened over the last few years, namely that it’s now extremely easy for cyber criminals to imitate people convincingly.

Remote work and virtual communication have skyrocketed just as AI has become startlingly adept at creating fake images, videos, and audio clips. Fixed and reliable boundaries in the workplace are a thing of the past, and it can be extremely hard to know who to trust.

To survive here, organisations need to trust less and verify more. Adopt zero-trust architecture that assumes everyone is a potential threat until rigorously proven otherwise. Implement multi-factor authentication throughout your organisation, and take nothing for granted.

Get serious about encrypting data

According to IBM, 32% of the impact of cyberattacks in 2023 was a result of data theft and leaks, and there was a 71% year-on-year increase in cyberattacks that used stolen credentials.

The lesson here? You need to be much more careful with data encryption. Identify your most sensitive data and invest heavily in making it inaccessible to bad actors.

More endpoint security

Research has found that as many as 90% of cyberattacks, and 70% of successful data breaches, start at endpoint devices.

With remote work seemingly here to stay, people now access data from all kinds of locations. It’s not enough to protect the perimeter of your organisation, you need to protect every endpoint individually. Approaches like endpoint protection platforms, endpoint detection and response, and good old-fashioned antivirus software are all essential in 2025.

Stay on top of third-party and supply chain access

As we mentioned earlier, supply chain attacks are skyrocketing. Gartner has predicted that by this year, 45% of organisations worldwide will have experienced attacks on their software supply chains.

The solution here takes us back to the zero-trust and identify-first approach. Locate your most valuable and vulnerable resources and prioritise protecting them. And keep your team members educated and aware of what threats look like and how to respond.

Have a plan for the worst-case scenario

Data breaches happen, and you need to accept that they might happen to you.

In 2023 alone, 9% of publicly traded companies in the USA alone reported a data breach. It may feel pessimistic, but you need to be prepared for the worst and have a clear action plan in place

Your individual team members need to be aware of their role and what they need to do in a data breach scenario. This is far more effective than simply hoping it won’t happen.

Work with Aryon

2025 is going to be a challenging year, but that doesn’t mean you need to panic. There’s a lot you can do to secure your assets and adapt to the changing threat landscape.

At Aryon, we help organisations like yours get all the right security strategies and tools in place to stay safe. Contact us to learn more about working together.