As organization prepare for 2025 to defend and prepare cybersecurity strategies, we can vouch that there would be AI for sophisticated phishing, vishing, and social engineering attacks. This would be accompanied by ransomware and multifaceted extortion can be more disruptive form of cyber crime, impacting various sectors and countries.
Along with AI-powered attacks, geopolitical tensions, and sophisticated cyber crime attacks are just a few of the challenges organizations will face in the coming year and thereafter as hackers and cyber criminals use advanced tactics and Organizations are perennially under-prepared and that is not limited to digital world but beyond.
AI is certainly on everyone’s trends list this year as everyone is betting on using AI — and the more attention something in technology gets, the more it becomes a target for hackers and cyber criminals.
Security dive interacted with CEO Rod Schultz Predictions for 2025 throws interesting insight on key evolving themes and insights.
How online trust and brand security are evolving in the age of Gen AI and what we can expect in 2025.
Bolster data shows attacks are happening faster, across a broader range of channels, and are no longer limited to traditional vectors like email. Attackers have become adept at creating fake social media accounts, sending text messages with dangerous links, and setting up malicious domains, all at scale with AI.
Bolster research found phishing attacks originating from app stores increased 102% from February to June of 2024, just one indicator of this evolving multi-channel focus.
We have arrived at a “hockey stick” moment, experiencing a parabolic spike in attacks aided by new AI tools. Here’s the reality for brands: more than 38,000 new scam pages are created daily, driven primarily by the threat actor’s desire to fool the masses with greater sophistication and complexity in hopes of financial gain says Rod.
As per Rod Schultz of Bolster “In 2025, I think we’ll see the topic of responsible AI gain importance, specifically due to an increase of public scrutiny around risks and remediation practices. Organizations will need to strike a careful balance over taking risks with AI and having rapid remediation strategies available. At the same time, we’ll see fraud techniques become more effective, and more precise at targeting aging boomers who control significant wealth’.
- The importance of including large language models (LLMs) in data security efforts and how the vulnerabilities of untrained LLMs are an unsolved problem in data governance.
- Algorithms are like athletes because those running on the cleanest data, doing the most relevant training and testing, have the best outcomes. AI systems are only as reliable as the data they are trained on—and that data must reflect the diverse, complex realities of human experience. We must train algorithms to learn quickly and then test the output to ensure they are processing and responding appropriately.
Security dive: What are the challenges evolving in Cyberspace for 2025?
The challenge is even more significant with human bias added to the mix. Businesses adopting AI solutions must prioritize compliance, data privacy, and ethical use. This includes ensuring all data exchanged with the LLM is encrypted in transit (e.g., via HTTPS, TLS) and at rest. It means restricting access to the LLM’s APIs or endpoints only to authenticated and authorized users. Policies for no data retention ensure the LLM does not retain or log user inputs unless explicitly necessary.
Finally, if data must be stored, anonymize it to ensure there is no link to individual users. These considerations don’t even include insider and adversarial threats against the LLM, including injection attacks and response manipulation.
Security dive: What according to you would be Role of AI driven security risk associated with businesses for 2025?
Understanding AI-driven security risks to businesses, including the impact of brand impersonations and phishing, and where we stand in our ability to detect attacks and eliminate them.
Businesses must use AI/ML to defend against AI-powered attacks. Because of the scale involved, automated detection, and the power to take down attacker infrastructure, eradicating malicious and fake web and mobile websites, app stores, social media accounts, and more is required.
- Web3 and Crypto Growth Fuels Fraud:
- Regulatory changes will accelerate Web3 and crypto adoption, creating fertile ground for fraud due to reduced oversight.
- AI’s Expanding Role and Risks:
- AI systems will continue evolving, but their complexity makes addressing issues within models increasingly challenging.
- Responsible AI will gain importance with more public scrutiny of risks and remediation practices.
- Organizations must balance taking risks with AI and having rapid remediation strategies.
- Fraudulent Activity Intensifies:
- Fraud techniques will become more effective, targeting aging boomers who control significant wealth.
- Impersonation will become easier and more accurate, increasing risks.
- Disinformation will proliferate, especially as social media platforms reduce their efforts to regulate its spread.
- The Role of Gen AI in Defense:
- Organizations need bespoke solutions to defend against attacks across email, social, and other channels. The rapidly evolving nature of attacks demands continuous weekly innovation to stay ahead.
- Erosion of Phishing Resistance:
- Because of the proliferation of scams, phishing will be considered an expected cost of doing business. This will also intensify because of the need for more push from brands or regulators for improved protection.
- Consumer Expectations for Security: Because of the increase in people experiencing fraud, buyers will be more informed in their decision-making and will begin rating companies based on their risk profiles, scam history, and response to fraud.
- Companies with poor protection and large shadow attack surfaces will face reputational harm, especially among vulnerable groups like seniors.
- The Bolster Advantage: Bolster will help companies run fast and be secure. It’s easy to slow down and be secure but we enable our customers to maintain speed (and even accelerate), while protecting their brand and their customers and their assets under management.
Focus area as per Rod Schultz of Bolster that organization must keep in loop while strategizing the cybersecurity road map for 2025 are.
Security dive: What are AI’s Expanding Role and Risks?
Responsible AI will gain importance with more public scrutiny of risks and remediation practices. Organizations will need to balance taking risks with AI and having rapid remediation strategies available.
Fraudulent Activity Intensifies
Fraud techniques will become more effective, targeting aging boomers who control significant wealth. Impersonation attacks will become easier and more accurate, increasing risks. Disinformation will proliferate, especially as social media platforms reduce their efforts to regulate its spread.
Erosion of Phishing Resistance
Due to the proliferation of scams, phishing will be considered an expected cost of doing business. This will also intensify the push from brands and regulators for improved protections.
Consumer Expectations for Security
As a result of more people experiencing fraud, buyers will be more informed in their decision-making and will begin rating companies based on their risk profiles, scam history, and response to fraud. Companies with poor protection and large shadow attack surfaces will face reputational harm, especially among vulnerable groups like seniors.
As per Rod Schultz , CEO, Bolster “Businesses and brands will see dramatically increased risks, as bad actors using AI will launch convincing impersonation attacks, making it easier and more accurate than ever to fool customers. And unfortunately, disinformation will continue to proliferate, as social media platforms reduce their efforts to regulate its spread. Due to the documented increase in scams, phishing will be considered an expected cost of doing business and this will intensify the push from brands and regulators for improved protections.”
(Edited by Gargi Chakraborty)
