While threat actors continue to rely on many “classic” tactics that have existed for decades, our threat predictions for the coming year largely focus on cybercriminals embracing bigger, bolder, and, from their perspectives, better attacks. From Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) groups becoming more specialized to adversaries using sophisticated playbooks that combine both digital and physical threats, cybercriminals are upping the ante to execute more targeted and harmful attacks.
In its 2025 threat predictions report, the FortiGuard Labs team looks at tried-and-true attacks cybercriminals continue to rely on and how these have evolved, shares fresh threat trends to watch for this year and beyond, and offers advice on how organizations worldwide can enhance their resilience in the face of a changing threat landscape.[1]
Emerging Threat Trends to Watch for in 2025 and Beyond - As cybercrime evolves, we anticipate seeing several unique trends emerge in 2025 and beyond. Here’s a glimpse of what we expect. More attack chain expertise emerges: In recent years, cybercriminals have been spending more time “left of boom” on the reconnaissance and weaponization phases of the cyber kill chain. As a result, threat actors can carry out targeted attacks quickly and more precisely. In the past, we’ve observed many CaaS providers serving as jacks of all trades, offering buyers everything needed to execute an attack, from phishing kits to payloads. However, researchers expect that CaaS groups will increasingly embrace specialization, with many groups focusing on providing offerings that home in on just one segment of the attack chain.
It’s cloud(y) with a chance of cyberattacks: While targets like edge devices will continue to capture the attention of threat actors, there’s another part of the attack surface that defenders must pay close attention to over the next few years: their cloud environments. Although cloud isn’t new, it’s increasingly piquing the interest of cybercriminals. Given that most organizations rely on multiple cloud providers, it’s not surprising that what was observed more cloud-specific vulnerabilities being leveraged by attackers, anticipating that this trend will grow in the future.
Automated hacking tools make their way to the dark web marketplace: A seemingly endless number of attack vectors and associated code are now available through the CaaS market, such as phishing kits, Ransomware-as-a-Service, DDoS-as-a-Service, and more. While Fortinet is already seeing some cybercrime groups rely on AI to power CaaS offerings, we expect this trend to flourish. Fortinet anticipate that attackers will use the automated output from LLMs to power CaaS offerings and grow the market, such as taking social media reconnaissance and automating that intelligence into neatly packaged phishing kits.
Playbooks grow to include real-life threats: Cybercriminals continually advance their playbooks, with attacks becoming more aggressive and destructive. Fortinet predict that adversaries will expand their playbooks to combine cyberattacks with physical, real-life threats. Analysts are already seeing some cybercrime groups physically threaten an organization’s executives and employees in some instances, and it anticipate that this will become a regular part of many playbooks. Transnational crime, such as drug trafficking, smuggling people or goods, and more will become a regular component of more sophisticated playbooks, with cybercrime groups and transnational crime organizations working together.
Anti-adversary frameworks will expand: As attackers continually evolve their strategies, the cybersecurity community at large can do the same in response. Pursuing global collaborations, creating public-private partnerships, and developing frameworks to combat threats are all vital to enhancing our collective resilience. Many related efforts, like the World Economic Forum Cybercrime Atlas initiative, of which Fortinet is a founding member, are already underway, and we anticipate that more collaborative initiatives will emerge to meaningfully disrupt cybercrime.
Enhancing Collective Resilience Against an Evolving Threat Landscape - Cybercriminals will always find new ways to infiltrate organizations. Yet there are numerous opportunities for the cybersecurity community to collaborate to better anticipate adversaries’ next moves and interrupt their activities in a meaningful way.
The value of industrywide efforts and public-private partnerships cannot be overstated, and the number of organizations participating in these collaborations will grow in the coming years. Additionally, organizations must remember that cybersecurity is everyone’s job, not just the responsibility of the security and IT teams. For example, implementing enterprisewide security awareness and training is a vital component of managing risk. And finally, other entities have a responsibility to promote and adhere to robust cybersecurity practices, ranging from governments to the vendors that manufacture the security products we rely on.
No single organization or security team can disrupt cybercrime alone. By working together and sharing intelligence across the industry, we are all collectively better positioned to fight against adversaries and effectively protect society.
This article is shared at no charge for educational and informational purposes only.
Red Sky Alliance is a Cyber Threat Analysis and Intelligence Service organization. We provide indicators of compromise information via a notification service (RedXray) or an analysis service (CTAC). For questions, comments or assistance, please contact the office directly at 1-844-492-7225, or feedback@redskyalliance.com
Weekly Cyber Intelligence Briefings:
- Reporting: https://www.redskyalliance.org/
- Website: https://www.redskyalliance.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/64265941
Weekly Cyber Intelligence Briefings:
REDSHORTS - Weekly Cyber Intelligence Briefings
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/5378972949933166424
[1] https://p.feedblitz.com/t3/1119013/141970831_/18574929_/~feeds.feedblitz.com/~/908229617/0/fortinet/blog/threat-research~Threat-Predictions-for-Get-Ready-for-Bigger-Bolder-Attacks
Comments