2025 predictions: Threats

The threat landscape is evolving at an unprecedented pace, and 2025 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for security professionals.

Attackers continue to refine their techniques, leveraging emerging technologies and exploiting systemic vulnerabilities in ways that will challenge organizations across industries. From the rise of AI-driven malware to the continued abuse of open source ecosystems, the threats on the horizon are becoming more sophisticated and harder to defend against.

In this edition of our 2025 predictions series, security experts share their insights on the biggest cyber threats we'll face in the coming year. Their forecasts highlight key trends that could define the security landscape in 2025 — offering a glimpse into the risks that organizations must prepare for now.

Predictions

Attackers will double down on open source crypto-stealers

"New protocols like the Tea protocol, with its blockchain rewards for developers, are already driving some users to abuse open source registries to test self-reward mechanisms but the trend of flooding open source registries with crypto-stealers and bogus packages will likely intensify in 2025. This mass-publishing activity threatens to throttle registries and disrupt legitimate usage, creating potential DoS risks for developers worldwide."  — Ax Sharma, Security Researcher

We dodged the XZ Utils bullet in 2024, but 2025 could be catastrophic

"The attempted XZ Utils attack was uncovered in 2024, but it was a sophisticated social engineering campaign initiated years in advance. While its shocking discovery signified the start of a new trend, I know similar campaigns are already well underway. XZ Utils wasn't an isolated event, and while it may take time for the more sophisticated campaigns to be discovered, less sophisticated copycats will be prevalent next year." — Brian Fox, Co-founder and CTO

Enterprises will see the negative consequences of unmaintained open source projects

"Unmaintained open source libraries and archived repositories have been a persistent risk for years, but in 2025 organizations will be forced to take action. As organizations take greater inventory of the components within their software via SBOMs, they will be forced to reckon with the threat posed by legacy components, which often do not receive regular security updates." — Ax Sharma, Security Researcher

The Continued Rise of AI-Driven Malware

"AI-assisted malware has surged. Bad actors publish malicious software en masse to exploit vulnerabilities faster than traditional defenses can adapt. Expect even more sophisticated attacks on the software supply chain in 2025, as cybercriminals refine AI to pinpoint targets and deploy malware with alarming precision. While developers are using AI to speed up coding, bad actors are using it to make malware more evasive and resilient. We all saw what happened with CrowdStrike, and that was just an accident. Imagine the devastation of a purposely malicious event of that magnitude, tailored to create the biggest possible impact. It might not happen in 2025, and we hope it doesn't, but someone out there is looking to replicate that disruption. Organizations must fortify their security postures now, as future breaches could reach them indirectly, even if they're not the primary target." — Ilkka Turunen, Chief Field Technology Officer

The future belongs to the prepared

The predictions for 2025 underscore a sobering reality: cyber threats are becoming more calculated, more automated, and more difficult to mitigate.

Open source ecosystems, once seen as bastions of innovation, are now prime targets for exploitation, and AI continues to be weaponized to accelerate attack campaigns. Additionally, unmaintained software dependencies and lingering vulnerabilities pose an ever-growing risk.

Organizations must take proactive steps to stay ahead of these threats — strengthening their defenses, prioritizing software supply chain security, and maintaining visibility into their software ecosystems. While specific attack tactics of 2025 remain unknown, one thing is certain: preparation today will determine resilience tomorrow.