By Scott Scheppers, Chief Experience Officer at LevelBlue

As we head into 2025, cybersecurity must remain a top priority as organizations face another year of increasingly sophisticated threats. While emerging technologies like AI hold promise, traditional security practices will still play a crucial role in defense strategies. The key to staying secure in the year ahead lies in understanding the evolving threat landscape while integrating security into the core of business operations. I talked with my colleagues at LevelBlue to gather their insights on what to expect in 2025 and how businesses can best prepare for next year's threats. Here's what they had to say:

Rakesh Shah, Vice President of Product Management

The year 2024 marked the exciting introduction of artificial intelligence, but its impact on cybersecurity has been over-inflated. While security vendors continue to invest in AI-enabled features, expectations around AI in cybersecurity are increasingly unrealistic - leading to a widening gap between promise and delivery, which customers will notice in 2025. AI is a long-term investment that should be viewed as a slow-burn in terms of technology advancement. AI's inability to fully interpret and adapt to complex attacks in today's escalating cyber threat landscape means it remains reliant on traditional security tools and human oversight. In 2025, security teams will shift their focus back to basics. While the advancement of recent technologies, such as AI, will enhance the delivery of security outcomes, people and processes will become critical.

Bindu Sundaresan, Director of Cybersecurity

Emerging technologies will elevate cybersecurity in 2025, yet cybercriminals will keep pace, exploiting threats like supply chain vulnerabilities, ransomware, IoT botnets, and AI-driven social engineering. Ransomware groups now target critical services, making software lifecycle security and vendor verification essential. Rising IoT use demands industry-wide standards to prevent device weaponization in DDoS attacks and breaches. Meanwhile, cybercriminals' use of AI to craft targeted phishing challenges organizations to evolve their defenses. In this evolving landscape, fortifying supply chains, adopting IoT standards, and leveraging AI will be vital to staying ahead.

Theresa Lanowitz, Chief Evangelist

As we move into 2025, successful cybersecurity strategies will depend on integrating cybersecurity into the core of business operations. To make collaboration between cybersecurity teams, development teams, and the business successful, leaders need data-backed insights rather than anecdotes. We're hearing a lot about DevSecOps. However, it's not just a buzzword. It's a shift from treating cybersecurity as an isolated, reactive process to a framework that integrates security from the beginning through to the end. For DevSecOps to thrive, development and security teams must understand each other's needs and prioritize security from the outset of any project. Cybersecurity has to be embedded as an upfront business requirement, not just a checklist item or a governance box to tick off. Integrating cybersecurity early on in the development process must include a realistic understanding of potential attack vectors and reporting back on how they're managed. This will be critical to building a cyber-resilient organization going forward.

The cybersecurity industry will face both challenges and opportunities in 2025. From navigating the growing complexities of AI to addressing ever-evolving threats, organizations will need to consider their innovation, agility, and resilience when facing the next cyberattack. It also remains an exciting time for the industry, and I look forward to seeing where new and advanced technology takes us and how businesses rise to meet the year ahead.

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