5 emerging cybersecurity trends to watch in 2025

As we look ahead to 2025, the threat landscape continues to evolve. Increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and the emerging trend of collaboration amongst cybercriminals introduces new challenges that organizations around the world must address now. While many threat actors re-use their strategies, there are a handful of tactics that will be re-imaged in the coming year due to emerging technologies and trends. Below are the top five key cybersecurity trends and tactics that are anticipated to hit new heights in 2025.

Decloaking malicious AdTech 

There will be a significant increase in the educational understanding and use of Traffic Distribution Systems (TDS) and cloakers, which are part of the malicious advertising world. By design, these systems are an essential tool for cybercriminals to conceal their activities and identify the most vulnerable victims. Threat actors have turned to malvertising as a means to distribute information stealers that have recently fueled a rise in data breaches, as well as disinformation and scam campaigns. But the broad use of these services is also starting to expose the actors who operate them. The role malicious AdTech plays in the global cybercrime ecosystem will become clearer as industry collaborates to decloak their infrastructure. 

Uncovering of organized crime in the digital world

Traditional organized crime groups are transitioning their operations to the digital realm through complex multinational corporations. Recently, significant progress was made in understanding Chinese organized crime and its involvement in investment scams across borders. With this, it’s anticipated that further revelations of globally operated organized cybercrime and its connections to crimes against humanity, including slavery, human trafficking, servitude, and extortion will be uncovered. Cross sector efforts to combat these crimes in both the digital and physical world will gain traction and begin to reduce their impact. 

Increased cybercriminal collaboration

Cybercriminals are increasingly seeking collaborations, similar to the way artists work together to create hit songs. These collaborations have enabled many major recent crimes, resulting in millions of dollars being seized in stolen assets. This was most recently observed with the Russian disinformation actor, Doppleganger, who was found to have connections with long-time TDS threat actor, VexTrio. In 2025, the international cyber community will recognize the rise of these new partnerships amongst threat actors. Cybercriminal collaboration is a natural extension of the evolving cybercrime economy, with threat actors specializing in and collaborating to procure necessary services at speed and scale.

The trend mirrors legitimate business ecosystems, with threat actors forming strategic alliances that maximize their operational efficiency and minimize individual risk. Specialized groups now trade and swap in access, malware, stolen data, and infrastructure, creating a complex underground marketplace that operates seamlessly. 

Growth of fake shops and services

Another emerging threat that’s anticipated for 2025 is the rise of fake shops and services created by threat actors, using automation and AI to improve language translation. These fake entities can act as unsuspecting back doors into user devices, often disguised as a trusted brand. The average user has been slow to recognize the potential threat of these fake shops and services, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Threat actors invest significant effort into building commercial personas, similar to how catfishers create fake identities. The increased distribution of applications will target unsuspecting individuals who are unaware of the evolving tactics of threat actors.

AI for damage mitigation and protection

Lastly, as threat actors continue to sink their teeth into AI, there are almost endless use cases for how the technology can enable bad actors to multiply their attack methods. This means the threat landscape will no doubt become more complex, diluted and difficult to protect against.

But, in the same way bad actors can use AI, so can organizations. In 2025, it’s predicted that organizations will use AI to tap into pattern recognition, data collection and protective threat hunting to enable faster response times when a situation occurs, reducing the overall impact of a cyber-attack, or even stopping and mitigating the attack before it occurs. This will be especially critical for organizations that have smaller-than-average team sizes, enabling their teams to do more with less. Additionally, even though threat actors can create more convincing content with AI, they must ultimately host their malicious operations on the internet, which is a structured world in which it is harder for them to hide.

The 2025 landscape

As we head into 2025, the cybersecurity landscape will only continue to evolve with new threats and global challenges. By anticipating these trends, organizations can proactively implement new measures like protective DNS to enhance their cybersecurity practices overall to stay protected.