Social engineering and ransomware attacks are expected to dominate the cyber risk landscape in 2025, according to security operations consultants at Arctic Wolf Labs.

It says weaknesses in identity and access management systems, alongside a continued rise in voice phishing techniques, will also continue to be exploited by threat actors to gain unauthorised access to target networks.

Critical infrastructure could be subject to destructive – rather than disruptive – attacks in the new year, it adds, as actors look to take advantage of changes in Western administrations and leadership.

Threat actors will also continue to leverage new and existing tools, with AI soon predicted to replicate human reasoning capabilities and allow actors to uncover novel initial access techniques as a result.

“Threat actors are becoming increasingly opportunistic in their chosen attack type, and 2025 will be no exception,” commented Dan Schiappa, chief product officer at Arctic Wolf. “Any new technology, or slight change in IT environment, can, and will, be taken advantage of as we head into the new year and its critical organisations protect themselves. Implementing basic cyber security measures, such as multifactor authentication, network segmentation and an incident response plan, should be a number one priority. Protecting against these expected threats – whether that’s through phishing-resistant MFA or credential controls – can also help prevent actors from gaining entry.”

---