December 30, 2025
Cyber Security’s Wildest Rides of 2025
Intro: Cyber security had a main character moment in 2025
You’d think in a year dominated by AI soap operas, deepfake politicians and haunted chatbots, cyber security would be playing second fiddle. Think again.
2025 was not a quiet year in cyber land. While AI kept the press rooms buzzing, security pros were fighting battles on every front — insider risks, supply chain failures, quantum-fright nights… oh, and let’s not forget everyone’s favourite migraine: identity sprawl.
At Xist4, we work with leaders across data, cloud, infra, and cyber every week, and this year gave us a front-row seat to their most frantic “you can’t make this up” stories. So I’ve pulled together my top 2025 cyber security moments worth talking about — not just because they made headlines, but because they hint at where it's all heading.
Remote work is still security's problem child
Remember when everyone said hybrid work was the “new normal” — like that was going to fix anything?
In 2025, many orgs were still playing whack-a-mole with access controls, dodgy VPNs, unmanaged endpoints, and Joe in Accounts forgetting his MFA token (again). The lines between personal and corporate devices blurred even further, and attackers took full advantage.
Key trend: The rise of zero trust fatigue. Companies rushed to implement frameworks but burned out halfway through. Tools were bought, dashboards lit up green, but policies stayed loose and user training often half-baked.
Takeaway: Stop assuming remote or hybrid models are “handled.” Make 2026 the year you prioritise:
- Consistent endpoint monitoring across all devices
- User access reviews that happen more than once a year
- Security training that’s engaging — not something that feels like Terms & Conditions on autopilot
Quantum: The existential threat no one feels ready for
Let’s get sci-fi for a sec. Quantum computing was once the boogeyman “10 years away.” Now? We’re measuring in months.
In 2025, NIST finalised its post-quantum cryptography standards — and several major tech vendors scrambled to retrofit existing products. Organisations suddenly realised their “secure” encrypted data might be future-hacked retroactively. Yeah, fun stuff.
The big bother: If you’re in govtech, fintech, healthtech — basically any sector with sensitive long-lived data — you’ve got a ticking time bomb. Data scraped today can be decrypted decades later when quantum advances mature.
Takeaway: Start your PQC (Post-Quantum Crypto) migration plan now. Ask your vendors:
- What’s our exposure to pre-quantum encryption?
- How soon can we test quantum-resistant protocols?
- Are we hoarding data we can’t protect in the future?
Identity is still everyone's weakest link
2025 proved what we already knew: identity is the new perimeter... and that perimeter is full of potholes.
The Okta breach early in the year was a wake-up call. Compromised admin consoles led to cascading access failures across customer environments and saw several CISOs sweating bullets at 2am.
What made it worse? Identity bloat. Too many users, too many roles, and too many overlapping tools with inconsistent policies. Add M&A chaos to the mix and... yikes.
Takeaway: Don’t let IAM be another acronym you ignore. In 2026, put effort here:
- Streamline roles and permissions — forget “just in case” access
- Invest in identity governance tools that scale (not just DIY scripts held together by duct tape)
- Design for breach — assume identity will be compromised and build in isolation / impact controls
AI didn’t just help attackers — it confused defenders too
AI was everyone’s favourite buzzword in 2025 — and it didn’t just power attacks. It also piled noise onto already overstretched cyber teams.
The promise: AI-powered threat detection that finds anomalies faster than humans.
The reality: Tools that spit out so many alerts no one knew what to act on first.
Meanwhile, red teams used generative AI to craft uncannily human phishing emails. You can thank ChatGPT’s evil twin for that invoice that almost passed your finance filters.
Takeaway: Not all AI is helpful. Before deploying AI tools, ask:
- Is this reducing complexity or adding it?
- Are teams trained to interpret and trust outputs?
- Can we audit what decisions the AI is making?
Supply chains: everyone’s blind spot until it's too late
If 2025 had a theme, it was this: your vendor’s mistake is now your nightmare.
From significant open-source vulnerabilities to deeply embedded third-party risks (hello MOVEit), organisations learned the hard way that even “low-risk” dependencies can blow holes into entire systems.
Scariest stat: According to SecurityScorecard, over 50% of breaches in 2025 were linked to third-party access or dependencies.
Takeaway: Build stronger vendor risk frameworks:
- Map your digital supply chain deeply — not just your tier-1 vendors
- Insist on transparency into vendors’ security practices during procurement
- Build contingencies for vendor outages or breaches — don’t assume they’ll handle comms when it hits the fan
Conclusion: Cyber security’s new rules of engagement
The cyber headlines of 2025 weren’t just cautionary tales — they were signals.
This isn’t just about patching faster, shouting louder about zero trust, or buying shinier tools. It’s about reframing security as an organisational competency — tightly linked to culture, design, and business resilience.
If you're a leader in infra, data, cloud or engineering, you can't afford to see security as someone else’s job. Same goes for founders building product. Security is the product. Trust = currency. Lose it and you’re toast.
So let 2026 be the year you:
- Audit your weakest access points (start with identity)
- Ask harder questions of your vendors and tech stack
- Level up your internal cyber awareness — company-wide
Or, at the very least, make sure no one in Finance is logging in from their cousin’s iPad again. Baby steps.
Need help building the right cyber team to tackle next year’s chaos? You know where I am. Let’s talk before the breach, not after.
Back to news