Cybersecurity has historically been viewed by companies as a loss center rather than a strategic capability. But in 2025, the growing influence of AI made that approach far riskier.
The spread of AI as a tool for both cyberattacks and defense fundamentally changed how and what organizations must plan for in terms of the threat landscape. The trouble with AI is that it can help bad actors automate attacks, in addition to guiding them to tailor attacks to spoof defenses. Defenders, on the other hand, can use AI to enhance awareness of potential threats by identifying attacks that might otherwise go overlooked.
According to the 2025 Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index, companies continue to struggle most with securing networks (31%) and identity (29%), followed by cloud environments (16%), machines (15%) and AI workloads (10%). The index is based on a survey of some 8,000 business leaders from around the world.
Other old-school forms of attack, such as ransomware, persisted in 2025 along with the suspected involvement of nation-states in the attacks. There were also shifts in oversight during the year, including the emergence and rapid retreat of the Department of Government Efficiency, which raised lingering questions about access to and handling of sensitive federal data.
There were also shifts in the federal government’s scrutiny of potential nation state-backed cyber threats, such as a cooling of attention on Russia as more eyes turned to China as a digital foe.
InformationWeek’s coverage of the cybersecurity scene in 2025 included deep dives into the cost of using AI in this space, lessons learned from cyber incidents and the evolution of decisions companies had to make to protect their systems and data:
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The cost of AI security
As enterprises race to adopt AI, security and budgeting questions loom large. What security costs does AI create? -
What CISOs think about GenAI
Generative AI’s rapid evolution and adoption has CISOs on edge, so they’re defining and implementing policies to protect their organizations.
