Next-gen cybercrime: The need for collaboration in 2025 – Source: www.csoonline.com

FortiGuard Labs’ Cyberthreat Predictions for 2025 report identifies emerging threat trends for the coming year and offers actionable guidance on how organizations can fortify their defenses against an ever-changing threat landscape.

Cybercrime is a relentless and evolving threat to organizations worldwide. However, with the right insights, we can significantly enhance our security, mitigate risks, and stay ahead of these criminals.

FortiGuard Labs’ Cyberthreat Predictions for 2025 report is designed to provide exactly these insights. It identifies emerging threat trends for the coming year and offers actionable guidance on how organizations can fortify their defenses against an ever-changing threat landscape.

In light of this report, I’d like to highlight some key findings, including advancements in the cybercrime market, new areas of vulnerability, and crucial strategies for combating cybercrime in the year ahead. Let’s dive into the details and explore how we can better protect our digital world.

An advanced cybercrime market

There is a market for everything, and unfortunately, that includes cybercrime. Driven by the promise of lucrative payouts, Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) offered in dark markets has grown over the years. While this is certainly true in scope, we anticipate that in 2025, the CaaS market will advance both in specialization and sophistication.

Early on, CaaS providers offered generalized services irrespective of a target’s sector, infrastructure, or even the targeted segment of the attack chain. While this has proven effective to a degree, the growth of this illicit market and subsequent competition will drive CaaS providers to greater specialization allowing them to stand out among their peers. Like regular market forces, specialization will likely improve the efficacy of CaaS providers and ultimately escalate the threat landscape.

Coinciding with specialization, CaaS providers will seek new methods to improve the efficiency of their practices to improve their margins. Although not new to the world of cybercrime, criminals have already used AI to power CaaS offerings. However, we expect this trend to grow significantly in 2025. Mirroring the efforts of leading security vendors, CaaS groups will invest in more sophisticated AI capabilities to automate each section of the attack chain and package those capabilities into comprehensive offerings.

The emerging weak points

Cybercriminals will always search for the path of least resistance leading to the greatest payout and will adapt their methods to stay effective. While there may not be a definitive answer, identifying potential weak points is crucial for mitigating risk across an organization.

While edge devices have often been the focus, we have seen threat actors increasingly target cloud environments. Although cloud technology isn’t new, it has increasingly piqued the interest of cybercriminals who hope to exploit vulnerabilities caused by dependency on multiple cloud providers and the potential for swift escalation during a breach. As such, it’s not surprising that we’re observing more cloud-specific vulnerabilities being leveraged by attackers, and we anticipate that this trend will grow in the future.

Unfortunately, attacks on cloud environments are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the evolving cybercriminal playbook. Attacks on critical infrastructure and healthcare providers have demonstrated that cyber-attacks can have devastating real-world consequences. We anticipate this trend will escalate as adversaries increasingly combine cyberattacks with physical threats. Already, some cybercrime groups are resorting to physical intimidation of executives and employees. Moreover, we foresee a troubling rise in transnational crimes, such as drug trafficking and smuggling, becoming intertwined with cybercrime. As cybercrime groups and transnational crime organizations collaborate, the threat landscape will become even more complex and dangerous.

A collaborative response

Staying aware of the constantly evolving tactics of cybercriminals is crucial, but the cybersecurity community also has the opportunity to proactively collaborate to stay ahead of these threats. By working together, we can better understand and anticipate adversaries’ next moves and effectively disrupt their activities.

Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility that extends beyond only the security and IT teams. Implementing comprehensive security awareness and training programs across enterprises globally is essential. Strengthening global collaborations, fostering public-private partnerships, and developing robust frameworks are key to enhancing our collective defense. Initiatives like the World Economic Forum’s Cybercrime Atlas exemplify these efforts. The Cybercrime Atlas is a public and private collaboration created to drive real impact and a coordinated effort to create a chain of disruption in the world of cybercrime.

We anticipate a growing number of organizations will join in crucial collaborations in the coming years. No single organization or security team can combat cybercrime alone. By sharing actionable intelligence and working together across the industry, we can significantly strengthen our defenses and more effectively protect society.

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