Trend Micro, a global leader in cybersecurity, today publishes its cybersecurity forecasts for 2025. The report highlights AI as a continuing driving force in the threat landscape, predicting cybercriminals will exploit AI to intensify attacks and create new security challenges for businesses and consumers.
The report warns that cybercriminals will increasingly employ advanced AI tools—such as deepfakes, malicious digital twins, and automated phishing kits—to produce more convincing scams and intrusions. Key concerns include:
- Highly personalized social engineering attacks that use AI to convincingly impersonate individuals and organizations. These attacks are becoming more sophisticated, making them difficult to detect even for experienced observers, and raising the bar for corporate security solutions.
- Attacks targeting cloud environments and supply chains, where vulnerabilities in public-facing servers are exploited to create widespread disruption.
- Ransomware campaigns conducted via legitimate tools, where attackers cloak malicious activity as normal operations to abuse corporate networks and resources.
“AI accelerates both opportunity and risk,” says Martin Fribrock, Sweden country manager at Trend Micro. For companies it is critical to implement robust safeguards to protect both AI systems and traditional network infrastructures. As attack surfaces expand, even the smallest connected devices need protection to ensure a holistic defense for the organization. At Trend Micro, we believe cross-industry collaboration is essential to counter the rising threats. Just as a network is only as strong as its weakest link, the same applies to society and infrastructure. We must first secure critical infrastructure with effective cybersecurity measures and then extend protection across all enterprises. Initiatives like NIS2 that raise cybersecurity requirements across the EU are therefore important.
Selected Trend Micro cybersecurity forecasts for 2025:
- AI becomes mainstream and creates new security risks: Organizations adopting AI agents risk exposing sensitive data or becoming targets of attacks if deployments are not managed and secured properly.
- Hacktivism and geopolitical influence: State-sponsored and state-aligned groups are expected to continue increasing hacktivist activity, driven by political and ideological motives.
- Pressure on the automotive industry: Rising threats to centralized electronic control units (ECUs) and the communications between charging stations and vehicles will escalate risks for automakers and drivers.
Trend Micro’s outlook emphasizes the need for organizations to combine technical defenses, policy measures, and industry cooperation to manage the evolving threat landscape. Practical steps include strengthening identity and access controls, monitoring for AI-assisted fraud patterns, securing cloud and supply chain components, and applying rigorous patch management. By building layered defenses and sharing threat intelligence, businesses can reduce exposure to increasingly sophisticated AI-driven attacks while fostering resilience across critical sectors.