By Samir Kumar Mishra, Director, Security Business, Cisco India & SAARC
As we edge closer to 2025, the threat landscape is getting more complex, and organisations are struggling to maintain a foothold. There are billions of devices and users connected to enterprise networks, cloud applications, and data at a scale unlike anything seen before. Meanwhile, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and the mainstream availability of capabilities like generative AI are enabling malicious actors to deploy more sophisticated, targeted attacks.
According to Cisco’s 2024 Cybersecurity Readiness Index, only 4% of organisations in India have the ‘Mature’ level of readiness needed to be resilient against modern cybersecurity risks. As we approach 2025, businesses are facing a stark reality – They need to realise that cybersecurity is no longer just a defensive strategy—it’s a critical business imperative. Here are some cybersecurity key cybersecurity trends expected to shape the landscape in the coming year.
Identity-based operations loom large: Identity has emerged as the new battleground for cybersecurity, as threat actors are increasingly leveraging identity to compromise enterprises. Despite Multifactor Authentication (MFA) remaining a critical first line of defence against identity-based attacks, malicious actors are using new and creative ways to steal credentials. What organisations need is a definitive way to analyse disparate telemetry data to ensure users are authentic and machine actions are performed only by authorised personnel.
Preparing for the quantum threat: Quantum computers have the potential to break today’s encryption which forms the backbone of data security across industries, but the IT industry is proactively preparing to counter this threat. Organisations are recognising that quantum resilience is no longer a futuristic concept but an immediate strategic imperative. In the coming year, experimental research on these threats will intensify, focusing on testing, identifying, and mitigating vulnerabilities to reinforce post-quantum security standards.
Zero-trust architecture expansion: The traditional perimeter-based security model is rapidly becoming obsolete. In 2025, organisations will embrace adaptive zero-trust models that treat every access attempt as potentially hostile, whether from inside or outside the corporate network. The zero-trust best practice of ‘never trust, always verify’ will evolve to become ‘never trust, always verify, and continuously monitor.’
Protecting the decentralised frontier with IoT and Edge Security: The explosive growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing technologies is creating a variety of security challenges. In 2025, organizations will face the complex task of securing vast, decentralised networks comprising thousands of interconnected devices operating across diverse and often unpredictable environments. Security teams will need to develop comprehensive visibility frameworks that can track and protect devices across different domains, integrating advanced threat detection, automated response mechanisms, and continuous risk assessment.
Security for AI, AI for security: The AI revolution requires us to rethink security entirely to tip the advantage in favour of the defenders. In 2025, companies must up their security postures to address entirely new types of risk introduced by AI. Businesses will need to provide a comprehensive set of cybersecurity solutions to secure the AI stack from the infrastructure up and also build AI-enhanced capabilities across the cybersecurity portfolio to enhance efficacy and efficiency.
Behavioural analytics as the new frontier of threat detection: Integration of AI and behavioural analytics is expected to revolutionise how organisations detect and respond to potential security breaches. Behavioural analytics will transform insider threat detection, providing a nuanced approach to identifying potential security risks. By understanding the tactics and strategies used by attackers, AI can develop and implement more effective defence mechanisms against attacks. AI models can learn from attempted attacks (e.g. data poisoning or prompt injection), and breaches, adapting their defence strategies over time to become more resilient against future threats.
Reimagining defensive strategies with cybersecurity mesh architectures: Organisations will need to build more intelligent, responsive security ecosystems that can adapt in real-time to emerging threats, scaling protection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This approach will require a fundamental rethinking of security architecture, moving from static, location-based defences to dynamic, identity-centric protection models that can adapt to the increasingly complex digital ecosystem.
The future of cybersecurity is not about building impenetrable walls but about creating intelligent, responsive, and adaptive security ecosystems. Businesses must develop the agility to anticipate, understand, and rapidly respond to emerging threats, leveraging advanced technologies like AI, behavioural analytics, and mesh architectures. The most successful defence strategies will emerge from robust, interconnected ecosystems where threat intelligence is shared, innovations are collectively developed, and cybersecurity becomes a collaborative, industry-wide endeavour.