Cybersecurity Statistics 2025: Ransomware, Breach Costs & AI Threats

• Cyberattacks are surging in volume and severity: Manufacturing is the number one targeted industry 26% of breaches with finance and healthcare not far behind. Ransomware shows up in 44% of breaches, a 37% jump from last year.
• Human error remains a leading cause: Roughly 60- 68% of breaches involve a human element phishing, stolen credentials, or insider mistakes. Phishing alone now causes about 15- 16% of breaches.
• Data breaches cost millions: The global average breach cost is $4.44M finally down 9%, but the U.S. average hit a record $10.22M. Healthcare breaches are worst of all, averaging $7- 10M each. Faster response pays off: breaches contained within 200 days cost $1.4M less than slow contained incidents.
• Emerging threats amplify risks: Ransomware demands average in the hundreds of thousands and extortion breaches cost $5.08M on average. Infostealer malware drove an 800% explosion in stolen credentials, with billions of passwords circulating on the dark web. Deepfakes and AI powered attacks are on the rise 13% of organizations had an AI related breach 97% lacked proper controls, and nearly half have encountered deepfake scams.
• Security spending and skills gap: Companies are pouring money into cybersecurity global spend up 15% to $212B in 2025, yet talent shortages hit a record 4.8 million unfilled roles. Alarmingly, only 49% of breached organizations plan to increase security investment post incident down from 63%, indicating a dangerous complacency.

Why Cybersecurity Statistics Matter in 2025

Cybersecurity statistics aren’t just numbers, they're a warning siren for business leaders. In 2025, cyberattacks are more frequent, costly, and sophisticated than ever. Within the first half of this year, one security provider Cloudflare already blocked more DDoS attacks than in all of 2024. Breaches that once took months to detect are now weaponizing Artificial Intelligence to strike faster and deeper. Why does this matter? Because every statistic represents real world impact dollars lost, businesses disrupted, and data stolen. Understanding the latest cybersecurity stats helps organizations prioritize defenses and avoid becoming the next headline. In this report, we’ll break down the key cyber stats of 2025 from skyrocketing ransomware and phishing trends to breach costs, top targets, and emerging threats like AI and explain what they mean for you now. Spoiler: It’s not all doom and gloom we’ll also highlight how strategies like penetration testing and smarter investments can turn the tide.

Cyber Attacks by Industry: Who’s Being Targeted the Most?

Not all industries face equal fire in cyberspace. Manufacturing and finance lead as the most attacked sectors in 2025, according to breach data. Verizon’s annual Data Breach Investigations Report DBIR analyzed over 22,000 incidents and found manufacturing suffered 3,837 security incidents with 1,607 confirmed data breaches more than any other industry. That means about 26% of all breaches in the dataset hit manufacturers. Why manufacturing? Many factories have embraced IoT and automation but lag in security, making them ransom worthy targets e.g. halting a production line.

The finance and insurance sector was next in line, with roughly 3,336 incidents and 927 breaches in the latest report. Banks and insurers hold valuable data and money, so they remain perennial targets for cybercriminals. Healthcare also saw an onslaught: 1,542 breaches out of 1,710 incidents extraordinarily high breach confirmation, likely due to strict reporting laws in healthcare. Healthcare breaches are particularly damaging we’ll see cost stats later because hospital networks can’t afford downtime and face heavy fines under regulations like HIPAA.

Even traditionally less targeted sectors aren’t safe. Education reported 851 breaches last year. And public administration government saw nearly 946 breaches. In short, no industry is immune but if you’re in manufacturing, finance, healthcare, or government, consider this a flashing red alert. It’s crucial for organizations in these sectors to implement robust security controls and regular testing. Many are even making red teaming and crisis simulations standard practice, effectively doing their own live fire exercises to prepare for the worst.

Pro Tip: Understand your industry’s threat profile. If you’re in a heavily targeted sector, prioritize advanced defenses like zero trust architecture and frequent audits. For instance, manufacturers should harden remote access to production systems, and hospitals must segment networks to protect sensitive patient data. Regular drills from incident response tabletop exercises to full red team engagements can reveal if your team is ready for the specific threats your industry faces.

Real world example: In 2024, a major healthcare payment processor suffered a ransomware breach that halted billions in transactions. This single incident not only leaked patient data but crippled hospital billing nationwide for weeks. The attack highlighted how threat actors increasingly target industries where downtime is most painful. The statistics reflect this trend: healthcare breaches cost more and take longest to contain of any sector, given the low tolerance for disruption.

Key takeaway: Know thy enemy and know they might have you in their sights based on what you do. Use industry specific threat intelligence and consider security services tailored to your field e.g. specialized web application penetration testing services for finance, or medical device pentests in healthcare. If your sector tops the charts for cyber incidents, it’s wise to assume you’re a target and act accordingly.

Ransomware’s Rapid Rise and Big Price Tag

If one threat defines the current cybercrime wave, it’s ransomware. The latest statistics confirm what many fear: ransomware is everywhere. In 2024, 44% of all breaches involved ransomware, up from 32% the year prior. That’s a 37% spike in just one year, a clear sign that attackers are leaning heavily on the encrypt and extort playbook. In Verizon’s analysis, ransomware was present in nearly half of breaches examined, making it the most common breach scenario.

Why the surge? Ransomware groups have industrialized their operations ransomware as a service kits, anyone? and are targeting organizations of all sizes. In fact, small businesses are getting hit hardest. In larger enterprises, ransomware appeared in 39% of breaches, but among SMBs it skyrocketed to 88% of breaches. That means if you’re a small company that gets breached, there’s an almost nine in ten chance ransomware was involved, a sobering statistic that dispels the myth that we’re too small to target a dangerous misconception we often address in cyber attacks on small businesses. Attackers know smaller firms often have weaker defenses and might be more likely to pay quickly.

Now, for some good news: more victims are resisting ransom demands. 64% of organizations did NOT pay the ransom when hit, up from 50% two years earlier. This growing refusal is likely putting a damper on the crooks’ earnings. In fact, the median ransom payment decreased to about $115,000, down from $150k a year before. Attackers are demanding big bucks often in the millions but many victims, especially larger, well prepared ones refuse to give in. IBM’s data showed a similar trend: in 2024, 63% of ransomware victims declined to pay, up from 59% in 2023. Law enforcement strongly advises against paying, and it seems that message is finally sinking in.

However, ransom demands themselves remain sky high. When attackers do publicize or leak data, the breaches become extremely costly averaging $5.08 million in incidents where the attacker disclosed the breach often through extortion. Essentially, even if you don’t pay a ransom, dealing with a ransomware breach system recovery, legal costs, notifying customers, etc. can run into millions.

Let’s put some additional numbers on the board for context:

• Ransomware by the numbers: The median ransom paid is $115k, but many incidents involve much higher asks. In 2024, the average ransom demand when paid was estimated around $2- 5 million according to various industry reports. One study found the average payment in late 2024 was $570,000, though that figure can be skewed by a few giant payouts.
• Who’s paying? Not SMBs, ironically. A recent survey found 64% of organizations now refuse ransom payments. The ones that do pay often cite desperate reasons like needing to restore operations quickly or prevent sensitive data leaks.
• Double extortion: In 2025, most ransomware attacks also steal data before encryption. So even if you can restore from backups, the attackers threaten to leak your data. This is why breach costs remain high, containing a data leak and notifying victims drives up the total cost even if no ransom is paid.

For businesses, the takeaway is clear: ransomware is a case where an ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure. Investing in strong security and incident response upfront is far cheaper than a multi million dollar breach. Regular data backups stored offline, network segmentation, and proactive threat hunting can limit ransomware damage. Importantly, test your defenses e.g., run a penetration testing service or even a full ransomware readiness assessment. These exercises can reveal if your team can detect and stop an attack before it spreads.

Why this matters: Ransomware isn’t just an IT problem; it’s a business continuity and financial risk problem. A single incident can halt your operations for days or weeks think Colonial Pipeline or Maersk, and even if you recover, customers might lose trust. The stats show ransomware is more prevalent than ever, so every organization should ask: How quickly could we respond if all our files were suddenly encrypted tomorrow? If you’re not confident in the answer, it’s time to shore up your backups, response plan, and perhaps engage in penetration testing as a preventive measure.

Bonus stat: Many ransomware attacks start with something as simple as a phish. A Sophos study noted that 54% of ransomware infections originated via phishing emails. This underscores the interconnected nature of threats phishing covered next often opens the door, then ransomware barges in. So tackling phishing and user awareness is actually part of your ransomware defense strategy.

Phishing, Malware & the Human Element: Still the number one Cause of Breaches

The more things change, the more they stay the same and in cybersecurity, human error and social engineering remain the top initial attack vectors. Despite all the high tech hacks, tricking a person is still the easiest way in for bad actors. Let’s unpack the stats:

According to IBM and Verizon’s data, roughly 60- 68% of security incidents involve a human element. That means in about two thirds of breaches, the attacker needed someone on the inside to click a malicious link, reuse a weak password, misconfigure something, or otherwise make a mistake. Phishing is the poster child here it has consistently been the number one or #2 cause of breaches every year.

In 2024, phishing caused about 16% of data breaches, slightly edging out stolen credentials as the most common initial vector. Verizon’s DBIR similarly found phishing was holding around 15% of breach cases as the entry point. In fact, phishing scams initiate 80- 95% of all breaches that involve some human interaction according to Comcast’s 2025 Cybersecurity Threat Report. Attackers have gotten frighteningly good at it they now use AI tools to generate convincing phishing emails in seconds, complete with flawless grammar and personalized details. No more Nigerian prince misspellings; today’s phishing email might look indistinguishable from a real CEO’s note.

Malware often goes hand in hand with phishing. A common scenario: a user clicks a phish link, which drops an infostealer malware on their system. These infostealers harvest everything from saved passwords and browser cookies to keystrokes and screenshots. It’s a silent infection the employee might not even notice but the malware is siphoning credentials to the dark web. One recent report noted an 800% surge in credentials stolen by info stealer malware in early 2025 attackers pilfered 1.8 billion credentials from 5.8 million infected devices in just a few months!. This flood of stolen logins fuels further attacks, because hackers then try those passwords elsewhere credential stuffing or sell the data. In 2024 alone, over 2.8 billion passwords ended up for sale or free on hacker forums, an astonishing number that underscores how rampant credential theft has become.

Even when malware isn’t involved, stolen or weak credentials are a major issue. Verizon found that the use of stolen creds was the leading action in 22% of breaches, and 88% of breaches involved compromised credentials at some stage often reused passwords. Password security remains a headache; that’s why many companies are moving to MFA and passwordless auth. Check out our breakdown of password security statistics for more eye opening figures on how password reuse and leaks are plaguing organizations.

Another human driven threat to note: Business Email Compromise BEC. BEC isn’t about malware but pure social engineering scammers impersonate a CEO or vendor via email and trick employees into sending money or sensitive data. The FBI’s Internet Crime Center reports BEC caused over $2.7- 2.9 billion in reported losses in 2023 alone. BEC remains the costliest form of cybercrime by dollar loss. The median fraudulent wire transfer via BEC is around $50,000, and criminals prefer bank wires 88% of BEC money is stolen through wire transfers. If you think your finance team wouldn’t fall for that, consider that BEC scams have duped even tech giants and banks the emails can be that convincing.

Insider threats and errors also fall under the human element. Depending on the study, insiders employees or contractors gone rogue, or just careless staff cause anywhere from 20% to 30% of breaches. Verizon noted that internal errors were especially common in the public sector and small businesses, sometimes accounting for 20%+ of incidents. For instance, a misconfigured database left open to the internet no password is technically a breach when discovered by outsiders, but it’s caused by human error. These mistakes, misconfigurations, sending data to the wrong person, lost laptops, etc. are still significant contributors to data leaks.

So, what do we do about this persistent human risk?

1. Security Awareness Training: Boring but true regular training and phishing simulations for employees help. Verizon’s report noted that phishing click rates are gradually dropping as users become more savvy. Still, a median of 1.5% of employees will click phishes even after training, which in a company of 10,000 is 150 potential clickers. Ongoing education is key.
2. Technological Backstops: Since humans will err, implement tech safeguards. Use email security filters that flag external or lookalike domains to combat BEC. Enable multi factor authentication everywhere, so a stolen password alone isn’t enough for hackers to get in. Consider Endpoint Detection and Response EDR tools that can catch that infostealer malware beaconing out.
3. Vulnerability Patching: Many incidents begin with exploiting an unpatched software vulnerability which is arguably a human/process failure someone didn’t update the system. Indeed, attacks exploiting unpatched software surged 180% recently. Maintaining good patch hygiene closes one big avenue of human neglect that hackers prey on see our cybersecurity vulnerability statistics for trends on CVEs and patch delays.

In summary, the stats reinforce an old truth: people are often the weakest link. Phishing remains rampant, malware is vacuuming up credentials, and simple mistakes can lead to breaches. But by building a culture of security think twice before clicking!, using technical controls as safety nets, and periodically testing your humans and processes e.g., through social engineering pentests or phishing drills as part of a continuous penetration testing platform, you can significantly lower the odds that an attacker’s email trick or malware trap will succeed.

Data Breach Costs Decline Globally But Soar in the U.S.

What’s the cost of all these cyber incidents? Researchers actually tally this in detail each year, and the latest Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025 has mixed news: globally, the average breach cost fell for the first time in 5 years but U.S. breach costs hit an all time high.

• Global average breach cost 2024: $4.44 million. This is a 9% drop from the previous year’s $4.88M. It’s notable because breach costs had been rising steadily for a decade. Faster threat detection thanks in part to automation/AI in security is credited with shaving off some costs. Containing breaches more quickly means less damage and cleanup expense. The average breach lifecycle time to identify and contain globally is now 241 days, down from 258 days. Shaving 17 days off breach response correlates with the cost reduction.
• United States average breach cost: $10.22 million. Yes, eight figures. The U.S. continues to have the most expensive breaches of any country, and that $10.22M is a record high. Why so high? A few factors: U.S. companies face higher regulatory fines and notification costs, plus higher lawsuit and identity theft mitigation costs. Also, the U.S. tends to have larger breaches more records compromised. Essentially, while global costs dipped, American firms are spending more than ever when they get hit. The disparity is huge a breach in the U.S. costs over 2× the world average.
• Industry breakdown: Healthcare breaches are consistently the costliest. Globally, the healthcare sector’s average breach cost was about $7.42M IBM’s study even after dropping a bit from the prior year. Another analysis pegged healthcare breaches at $9.8M on average vs. finance at $6.1M. Either way, healthcare is number one. Financial services come second $5- 6M globally, and technology companies also see higher than average costs. Public sector and education typically have the lowest average costs, often $2- 3M, partly because the data stolen may be less monetizable or those orgs have less ability to spend on recovery.
• Root causes affect cost: Breaches stemming from third party or supply chain attacks were notably pricey IBM found if an attacker first compromises a business partner or vendor supply chain breach, it added $370k to the cost on average. Another insight: breaches involving shadow AI or unsanctioned AI use in a company cost $670k more than average. And breaches where the attacker leaked the data publicly extortion cost nearly $5.08M vs $4.43M when a friendly third party disclosed it. In short, if the bad guys hold the narrative leaking your data, you pay more.
• Breach lifecycle & savings: As noted, 241 days is the average find and fix time. Breaches contained in under 200 days cost $4.0M, whereas those that drag past 200 days cost $5.4M. That’s a $1.4M delta for slow response. Also, companies that extensively use automation and AI in cybersecurity saved about $1.76M in breach costs versus those that don't, proving that investing in modern security tools can literally pay off when an incident happens.

One more interesting tidbit: Who pays after a breach? More than half of breached organizations admit they pass on those costs to customers in the form of price increases=. So, breaches contribute to inflation in a way! This is why consumers and regulators are demanding better security they ultimately foot the bill when companies get hacked.

Practical takeaways: Knowing these cost stats can help build a case for security investment. If the average breach is $4.4M globally, spending a fraction of that on prevention, say, $100k on a vulnerability assessment vs penetration testing program, or improving your SOC monitoring is completely justified. It’s like an insurance policy with better ROI. Especially if you operate in the U.S. or handle health/financial data, the stakes are extremely high. Consider also cyber insurance though premiums are rising steeply but remember, insurance doesn’t cover the loss of reputation or customers after a big breach.

To avoid those 241 days of unnoticed intrusions, implement robust detection SIEM, EDR, XDR solutions and regularly test your incident response. We often run breach simulation exercises with clients during a penetration testing as a service PTaaS engagement essentially acting as attackers and seeing how quickly the client detects us. This helps measure that dwell time and train the IR team to react faster, potentially saving millions by shaving days or weeks off response.

Cost trend to watch: While 2024 saw a global dip, don’t be too optimistic 2025 and beyond could easily see costs rise again due to new factors e.g. AI driven attacks causing bigger breaches, or new privacy laws upping fines. Cybercrime damages globally are projected to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, which is mind boggling. That figure counts all losses not per breach, but it shows the overall economic impact trajectory. The bottom line is that breaches remain extremely expensive events to deal with and the justification for strong preventive measures has never been clearer.

For more detailed breakdowns by industry and region, see our full data breach statistics and trends report, which dives into breach costs, root causes, and case studies in depth.

Beyond the Hype: AI, Deepfakes, and Emerging Threats

If 2024 was the year AI went mainstream ChatGPT anyone?, 2025 is proving that attackers have entered the chat. A new wave of AI driven threats is emerging, from deepfake scams to AI assisted hacking, and the stats are fascinating and a bit scary.

AI related breaches: IBM’s 2025 report revealed that 13% of organizations experienced a breach involving AI in some way such as attackers targeting AI systems or using AI tools in the attack. More alarmingly, 97% of those organizations lacked proper AI security controls essentially leaving the doors open. This might include things like unsecured AI APIs, no access controls on sensitive AI data, or employees misusing AI without oversight the so-called shadow AI. These breaches often led to data being compromised 60% of AI breaches involved data theft and operational disruptions 31% caused outages.

Deepfakes and impersonation scams: Remember that $35 million deepfake audio heist from a couple years ago where criminals mimicked a CEO’s voice? Such incidents are becoming more common. One survey by iProov found 47% of organizations have experienced a deepfake based attack e.g. fake audio or video used in a fraud attempt. And a TechMonitor study noted 72% of senior executives reported being targeted by cybercriminals in the past 18 months, many involving AI generated content. We’re talking voice phishing vishing calls where an AI clone of your boss asks for a transfer, or bogus video calls with a forged face. In 2024, a shocking case involved scammers using an AI generated voice of a company director to authorize a $25 million bank transfer and it succeeded. The average deepfake scam isn’t that dramatic, but clearly this threat has moved from theoretical to real.

Attackers using AI tools: It’s not just the content attackers are leveraging AI to automate and supercharge their methods. According to IBM, about 16% of breaches now involve attackers leveraging AI in some capacity. The most common usage is to generate more believable phishing emails or to evade spam filters AI can write emails that don’t trigger keyword alarms. We’ve also seen AI used to find vulnerabilities using AI code assistants to speed up writing exploit code and even to intelligently choose targets an AI might scan LinkedIn to pick the ideal person to phish in an organization. Gartner predicts that by 2027, 1 in 5 attacks will use generative AI in some part of the kill chain.

Insider Shadow AI risks: On the flip side, employees are using AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, etc. often without clearance. Verizon found 15% of employees were routinely using generative AI on work devices like pasting code or data into ChatGPT, and many did so with personal accounts or non approved setups. This shadow AI use has led directly to breaches in 20% of organizations for example, an employee might inadvertently feed sensitive source code into an AI that is public, and that data leaks. Such breaches were found to cost significantly more on average because they often involve proprietary info or personal data exposure. It’s a new kind of insider threat: well meaning employees who unintentionally leak data by using unsanctioned AI tools.

DDoS goes hyper volumetric: While not AI related, another emerging threat trend is the sheer scale of Distributed Denial of Service attacks. Cloudflare’s Q2 2025 report highlighted that they mitigated the largest DDoS ever recorded: a 7.3 Tbps flood at 4.8 billion packets per second. These numbers are astronomical such an attack could knock almost anyone offline if not mitigated. And although the number of DDoS attacks fluctuates quarter to quarter, the year over year volume was up 44% in Q2. Attackers even engage in ransom DDoS now, where they threaten organizations with massive DDoS attacks unless paid. Telecom and internet infrastructure companies are the most targeted because knocking out a telecom provider affects thousands of customers. If your business relies on online availability and whose doesn’t these days?, be aware that DDoS threats are very real. Consider using cloud DDoS protection services and having a playbook for response.

Nation state and espionage attacks: 2025 has also seen a spike in attacks with espionage motives. The DBIR noted that 17% of breaches were driven by espionage state affiliated hackers, up notably. In manufacturing, espionage motivated breaches jumped from 3% to 20% in one year likely due to states targeting intellectual property think defense, aerospace, semiconductor industries. Geopolitical tensions Russia/Ukraine, China/U.S. are spilling into cyber. We’ve seen critical infrastructure attacks, energy grids, pipelines and a rise in supply chain compromises 30% of breaches involved third party access, double the prior year. For companies, this means your threat model might need to include serious actors, not just random cybercriminals. If you have valuable IP or serve a strategic industry, assume nation state hackers might come knocking quietly. Implementing strong network segmentation, monitoring for abnormal data access, and conducting threat hunting for APT advanced persistent threat behaviors is prudent in these sectors.

So how do we deal with these emerging threats? A few ideas:

• AI Governance: Companies should institute clear policies on employee use of AI to prevent shadow AI mishaps and security controls for any in house AI systems. For example, restrict what data can be fed into public AI tools, and consider red teaming your AI models testing them for vulnerabilities, prompt injection, etc..
• Deepfake Defense: Strengthen your verification procedures. For instance, have a policy that any wire transfer above X amount must involve two factor verification outside of email/voice e.g. in person or via a known secure channel. Train execs and finance teams about deepfake scams if you get an urgent voice call from the CEO to transfer money, pause and verify through another channel.
• Leverage AI for defense: The good news is AI can help the good guys too. Security AI can detect anomalies like an AI flagging: Why is the CFO logging in from Europe at 3 AM? and reduce response times. Organizations that deployed AI powered security saw nearly $2M lower breach costs and 108 days faster containment. Embrace tools like user behavior analytics, AI driven threat detection, and automate routine security tasks it augments your overworked team.
• Keep doing the basics right: Fancy AI attacks often still rely on basic gaps. E.g., deepfake or not, a BEC scam succeeds only if your internal processes allow a single email to authorize a big payment. Similarly, an AI written exploit still needs an unpatched hole to work. So maintaining good cyber hygiene patching, least privilege, backups, continuous vulnerability assessments, etc. is as critical as ever.

The bottom line is that the threat landscape is evolving with AI and other emerging techniques, but organizations that stay informed and adapt their defenses can keep up. As attackers add new weapons to their arsenal, defenders should too and that includes upskilling your team the cybersecurity skills gap, next section, is a big challenge here and possibly partnering with experts for advanced services like AI risk assessments or deepfake detection tools.

Want a deeper dive? See our dedicated article on AI cybersecurity threats for real world examples of AI in attacks and how to counter them.

Security Spending, Talent Gaps, and Preparedness: A 2025 Reality Check

With all these threats escalating, one would hope organizations are responding in kind spending more on security and hiring more skilled defenders. To an extent, they are. But the statistics reveal some worrying gaps between threat and response.

Cybersecurity Budgets on the Rise: Globally, businesses are indeed pouring more money into cybersecurity. Gartner projects a 15% increase in security spending in 2025, which would bring the annual market to around $200+ billion. Another analysis by IDC expects worldwide security spend to grow 12% yearly and reach $377B by 2028. Notably, the US and Western Europe account for over 70% of that spending meaning the lion’s share of security investment is in North America/Europe. Regions like APAC and Latin America are growing their budgets faster percentage wise, but from a smaller base.

Surveys echo this trend: PwC found 85% of companies plan to boost cybersecurity budgets in 2024, and an ISC² study noted that security now comprises about 13-15% of overall IT spending on average, up from 10% a few years ago. In other words, security is finally getting a bigger slice of the IT pie, which is good.

However the Post Breach Paradox: One of the strangest findings from IBM’s research is that organizations that actually get breached are becoming less inclined to increase security spending afterward. In 2025, only 49% of breached organizations said they would invest more in security after the incident, down from 63% the year before. This might reflect breach fatigue or budget realities perhaps companies feel they’ve already invested a lot and a breach still happened, or they face cost cuts. But it’s concerning: you’d think a breach is a wake up call to double down on security, not pull back. This stat suggests some firms become fatalistic we got hit, stuff happens or simply can’t spare more funds. It underlines the importance of making the case for security before a crisis, not waiting until after when budgets might actually tighten due to breach losses.

Cyber Insurance and Compliance: Part of the spending increase is going into cyber insurance and compliance efforts. Cyber insurance premiums have surged some companies see 50-100% hikes year over year, and insurers now demand things like annual penetration testing for compliance as a condition. Global spending on security services outsourcing to managed security, consultants, etc. is also rising fastest, as companies admit they can’t do it all in house.

The Talent Shortage Worst Ever: Money is one thing, people are another. The cybersecurity skills gap in 2024 hit a record high. Industry group ISC² reported a global shortfall of 4.8 million cybersecurity professionals. That’s a 19% increase in the gap from the year before! Essentially, the field isn’t adding workers fast enough to keep up with demand. In the U.S., there are 1.3M people employed in cyber roles, but over 500,000 jobs are still unfilled. This shortage has real security impacts IBM found companies with understaffed security teams incurred breaches costing $1.76M more on average.

Why is the gap growing despite more interest in cybersecurity careers? The data points to a few factors:

• Budget Cuts and Hiring Freezes: Economic headwinds in 2024 led many firms to slash security budgets and freeze hiring, ironically at a time of peak threat. 37% of organizations faced cybersecurity budget cuts in 2024, and 38% instituted hiring freezes. Additionally, 25% reported security team layoffs. So part of the gap is self inflicted companies trimmed staff to save costs, even though it increases risk.
• Skills Mismatch: It’s not just quantity of people, but the right skills. Emerging areas like cloud security, AI/ML security, and DevSecOps have huge talent shortages. A recent study showed the top skill gaps are in AI security 34% of orgs lack it, cloud security 30%, zero trust implementation 27%, incident response 25%, and web app pentesting 24%. So even if positions are filled, the team might not have experience in the latest threat domains.
• Burnout and Turnover: The existing cyber workforce is burning out. In one ISSA/ESG survey, 65% of security professionals said their job has gotten harder in the last two years, and 1 in 4 said much harder. They’re drowning in alerts and stress. Over one third are considering leaving their jobs, some even leaving the field entirely. This churn exacerbates the gap.
• Unrealistic Entry Barriers: Many companies still require 5+ years experience, multiple certs, and a CISSP for relatively junior roles, a common complaint. This discourages new talent and makes the hiring pool unnecessarily small.

The skills shortage directly ties back to our earlier topics. For example, lack of skilled personnel is a big reason breaches take 200+ days to detect you simply don’t have enough eyes on screens. It’s also why some fundamental security tasks like patch management or conducting in depth manual vs automated penetration testing fall by the wayside.

Bridging the Gap: Organizations are tackling the talent gap with a mix of strategies:

• Managed services & outsourcing: Can’t hire a full in house SOC? Outsource to an MSSP. Need a skilled ethical hacker? Consider a penetration testing as a service platform or consulting partner. This is a short term fix but increasingly popular.
• Upskilling and cross training: Companies are investing in training existing IT staff to transition into security roles. Some are also focusing on retention by improving work life balance for cyber teams burnout prevention.
• Automation: Using AI and automation to handle level 1 tasks like initial incident triage, log correlation, etc. can alleviate the load on humans. As noted, those who did this saw savings and faster breach resolution.
• Widening the funnel: Initiatives to bring in more diverse talent e.g., hiring from broader educational backgrounds, not just looking for 4 year degrees and apprenticeship programs are slowly growing. Still, the ISC² study found the workforce is only 24% female globally indicating there’s a huge untapped demographic if the field can become more inclusive.

In the meantime, every company should be aware that if you have a security team at all, they’re likely overworked and understaffed. Support them. That might mean lobbying for an extra headcount or two, or at least providing tools to make their job saner. From an exec perspective, remember that investing in your people has direct security ROI an overwhelmed analyst might miss the signs of a breach, whereas an enabled, supported team is your best defense.

Lastly, it’s wise to have an external review of your security posture periodically, especially if your team is stretched thin. Bringing in an outside penetration testing company or doing a security audit can provide a fresh perspective and catch things your busy crew might overlook. Think of it as a second set of eyes critical when human errors and gaps are rampant.

How Penetration Testing and Other Proactive Measures Save the Day

By now, you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed by the onslaught of cyber threats and sobering stats. The natural question is: What can we do about it? One resounding theme across many of these reports is the need for proactive security testing and preparedness. In particular, penetration testing the practice of ethically hacking yourself before criminals do has emerged as a key strategy for 2025 and beyond.

In fact, the latest cybersecurity guidelines and frameworks explicitly recommend regular testing. The CIS Critical Security Controls v8 lists Penetration Testing as Control number one8, urging orgs to simulate attacks to find gaps. Many compliance standards like PCI DSS require annual pen tests. And remember those breach reports? They often conclude with test your incident response plan or conduct red team exercises as top recommendations. Translation: don’t wait for an attack to learn your weaknesses, find them first.

Why Pen Testing Matters More Than Ever in 2025

• Complex IT, Complex Risks: As companies adopt cloud, IoT, AI, and other new tech, the attack surface explodes. Misconfigurations happen. Pen testers can evaluate these modern systems e.g. doing cloud penetration testing to ensure your AWS/Azure setups are secure, or testing a new AI app for logic flaws. Automated scanners won’t catch business logic issues or chained exploits in these complex environments but skilled testers often will.
• Threat Actors Up Their Game: Today’s attackers use tools and techniques that a good red team can emulate. For instance, a penetration test might simulate a phishing attack to see if they can bypass your email filters and trick an employee, then escalate privileges internally, a common ransomware precursor. If they succeed, you just learned a valuable lesson without the real damage. It’s far better to have an ethical hacker compromise an account in a controlled test than a malicious hacker do it for real.
• ROI of prevention: Consider this simple math: If a breach costs $4 million, but a thorough penetration testing program costs, say, $50k per year, the ROI of preventing just one breach is astronomical. Pen tests frequently uncover serious vulnerabilities default passwords, critical unpatched servers, unsafe development practices that could have led to breaches. Fixing those proactively can save you the mega costs we discussed earlier. In essence, penetration testing is an investment to avoid much larger losses.
• Insurance and Legal Needs: Cyber insurers increasingly ask, Do you conduct regular 3rd party penetration tests? during underwriting. If you do, you may get better terms. Legally, demonstrating due diligence with security testing can reduce liability after a breach we took reasonable measures. We’ve also seen that organizations with robust testing regimes tend to catch incidents faster their teams are simply more aware and prepared.

How Much Does Penetration Testing Cost? Benchmarking ROI

One common question is the cost of pen testing because hey, we just talked about budgets. Costs vary by scope and provider, but here’s a rough comparison of typical penetration testing price ranges for different assets and project types in 2025:

Why such wide ranges? It depends on complexity and depth. A simple brochureware website might be at the low end, whereas a massive e-commerce web app with thousands of endpoints could be at the high end. Internal networks often cost more if on site work is needed or the environment is large. Cloud testing can vary if you want an architecture review plus attack simulation across many cloud services.

There are a few pricing models in the market:

• Project based/fixed fee: Common for a one time test e.g., $10k for a web app pentest delivered in 2 weeks.
• Hourly rates: Some consultants charge hourly $150- $300/hr is typical. This is less common for straightforward scopes, more common for bespoke engagements or retainer arrangements.
• Retainers: Larger orgs might keep a firm on retainer for ongoing testing throughout the year, paying, say, $100k for an allotment of testing across multiple apps.
• Subscription/Continuous PTaaS: Penetration Testing as a Service platforms offer continuous testing for a monthly fee ranges widely: $2k- $10k/month depending on scope and frequency. This can be cost effective if you frequently deploy new code or assets that need regular testing.

Comparatively, automated vulnerability scanners or managed scanning services are cheaper, maybe a few thousand dollars a year, but they are not equivalent to a full manual pentest. They catch low hanging fruit but often miss the critical logic flaws or chained exploits that a human tester would find. It’s common for a company to use both: automated tools for baseline coverage and manual penetration tests for deep dives into critical systems.

From a risk perspective, penetration testing helps prioritize fixes. After a test, you get a report highlighting your most serious vulnerabilities and actionable remediation steps. This guides your security improvements efficiently patch what matters first. Many companies incorporate pen testing into their SDLC Software Development Life Cycle for new applications or major updates, as a quality gate before production.

More Than Pen Testing: Holistic Preparedness

Pen testing is one pillar of being proactive. There are other practices we recommend, which the stats implicitly support:

• Incident Response Drills: As mentioned, the breach cost data shows speed is crucial. Regular IR drills with various scenarios, including ransomware, insider threats, etc. can cut down that response time drastically. Make sure your team has practiced what to do when the fire alarm goes off.
• Red Team vs Blue Team Exercises: Consider running a red team/blue team exercise where an internal or external red team tries to compromise you without prior notice, while your blue defense team tries to detect and stop them. This truly tests your people, process, and tech end to end. It’s essentially a controlled real world test. Some orgs do this annually or even quarterly.
• Tabletop Exercises for execs: Get your leadership in a room and walk through a breach scenario communications, legal, PR response. Non technical preparedness matters too mishandling a breach delayed disclosure, misleading statements can amplify costs via fines or reputational damage.
• Continuous Monitoring: Many companies are moving to continuous security validation using tools to simulate attacks or probe controls on an ongoing basis. This complements periodic pen tests by ensuring your security controls are working day in, day out for example, sending benign test phishing emails regularly to see if employees report them, or using breach and attack simulation software inside the network.

In summary, statistics without action are just trivia. The organizations that fare best against cyber threats are those that internalize these lessons and act on them. They don’t treat security as a checkbox; they treat it as a continuous process of improvement, testing, and refinement. And when an incident does occur, they’ve rehearsed it like firefighters drilling for a blaze, meaning they jump into action and contain the damage far more effectively.

2025’s threat environment is daunting, but not hopeless. The data shows challenges, yes, but also solutions that work from AI driven defenses cutting breach costs, to companies refusing ransoms and thereby reducing criminals’ incentives, to the clear value of practices like penetration testing. Use these insights as motivation to strengthen your own security posture. Because if there’s one meta stat to remember: 100% of organizations are potential targets. Cybersecurity statistics aren’t just numbers, they're stories of who stayed safe, who got hurt, and what we can all learn to tilt the odds in our favor.

Staying Ahead of the Threat Curve

Cybersecurity in 2025 is a high stakes game of cat and mouse. The statistics we’ve explored paint a clear picture: threats are escalating from rampant ransomware to crafty AI enhanced scams and the cost of complacency has never been higher. Yet, these same stats also illuminate a path forward. Organizations that invest in preparedness, whether through smarter technology AI driven defenses, people and training, or proactive measures like regular penetration testing, are significantly reducing their risk.

The overarching lesson? Don’t be intimidated by the threat landscape, be motivated by it. Every frightening number like that $10M breach cost or 88% SMB ransomware stat is a rallying cry to strengthen your defenses and refine your response plan. And it’s achievable: breaches can be prevented or mitigated with the right mix of effort. We have clients who, through consistent security improvements and drills, have gone from being soft targets to cyber resilient organizations. They still face attacks everyone does, but they detect and deflect them routinely turning what could have been multi million dollar disasters into mere blips.

Ready to strengthen your defenses? The threats of 2025 demand more than just awareness; they require readiness. If you’re looking to validate your security posture, identify hidden risks, or build a resilient defense strategy, DeepStrike is here to help. Our team of practitioners provides clear, actionable guidance to protect your business.

Explore our penetration testing services to see how we can uncover vulnerabilities before attackers do. Drop us a line, we’re always ready to dive in and bolster your security.

About the Author:Mohammed Khalil is a Cybersecurity Architect at DeepStrike, specializing in advanced penetration testing and offensive security operations. With certifications including CISSP, OSCP, and OSWE, he has led numerous red team engagements for Fortune 500 companies, focusing on cloud security, application vulnerabilities, and adversary emulation. His work involves dissecting complex attack chains and developing resilient defense strategies for clients in the finance, healthcare, and technology sectors. Mohammed is passionate about translating cutting edge threat research into practical advice that organizations can use to stay one step ahead of attackers.

FAQs

• How many cyber attacks happen per day in 2025?

It’s estimated that over 3000 cyber attacks hit companies each day on average, but this number varies widely by source and definition. For context, one report noted that globally a ransomware attack occurs roughly every 2 seconds by 2025 that’s 43,000 per day, though that includes consumer incidents. Enterprise networks face tens of millions of intrusion attempts daily if you count all automated scans and malware. What’s clear is the volume is at an all time high for example, antivirus firms detect 560,000 new malware samples each day. So, while the exact attacks per day is hard to pin down, it’s safe to say thousands of attacks are launched daily and every organization is likely probed multiple times a day by bots or hackers.

• Which industry has the highest cyber attack rate or risk?

In 2025, manufacturing and financial services are at the top of the list for cyber attacks. Manufacturing had the most incidents in Verizon’s DBIR dataset about 26% of breaches, largely due to ransomware and state espionage targeting intellectual property. Finance and insurance were close behind, as they’re constantly targeted for monetary gain. Healthcare also suffers a very high breach rate and the costliest incidents averaging $9- 10M each. Other highly targeted industries include government, technology, and education, the latter often hit by ransomware. However, risk also depends on preparedness e.g. finance is heavily targeted but also typically has stronger security measures, whereas sectors like manufacturing or construction might have less mature security, raising their risk if attacked.

• What percentage of data breaches are caused by human error?

Studies attribute roughly 60% to 88% of breaches to some form of human error or the human element. Verizon’s 2025 report said about 74% of breaches involve a human element including errors, phishing, misuse in prior years, and it’s hovering around 60% more recently. IBM’s data similarly showed human error was a major contributor in the majority of incidents. This includes mistakes like misconfigured databases, falling for phishing, using weak passwords, or lost devices. A commonly cited stat is about 85% of breaches have a human element Verizon 2021, but recent numbers suggest around two thirds is a realistic figure. The takeaway: while technical vulnerabilities are important, security awareness and process discipline are just as critical, since people can inadvertently open the door for attackers.

• How much does a data breach cost a company on average in 2025?

The global average cost of a data breach in 2024 was $4.44 million, according to IBM’s 2025 report. That’s actually a slight decrease from $4.88M the year before. However, this is a worldwide average across industries. In the United States, the average breach cost hit a record $10.22 million significantly higher than elsewhere. Costs include investigation, remediation, downtime, lost business, customer notifications, credit monitoring, fines, legal fees, etc. Some specific industry averages: Healthcare $10M, Finance $6M, Energy $5M, Retail $3.6M these vary by report. It’s also worth noting mega breaches millions of records skew higher those can cost hundreds of millions the $4.44M is for breaches <100k records. The cost also correlates with response time breaches contained in <200 days cost around $4M, while those taking longer cost $5M+. Bottom line: even a typical breach is very expensive for a company, hence the strong push for prevention and cyber insurance.

• What is the most common way hackers get into systems?

The most common initial access vector for breaches remains phishing emails. Phishing was responsible for about 16% of breaches the top single vector in IBM’s report and consistently ranks number one or #2 each year. Attackers send a fraudulent email to trick someone into clicking a malicious link or attachment, which delivers malware or steals credentials. The second most common way in is through stolen or weak credentials passwords. Verizon noted 22% of breaches involved stolen creds for example, attackers purchase leaked passwords on the dark web and try them on company accounts. Other frequent entry points include vulnerability exploitation unpatched software, which spiked in frequency by 34% last year, and remote desktop protocol RDP compromise often tied to weak credentials again. In summary, social engineering phishing/BEC and exposed credentials are the leading doors hackers use, far more than exotic zero day hacks. This is why basic cyber hygiene phishing training, MFA, patching, and password management goes such a long way.

• How does penetration testing help improve cybersecurity?

Penetration testing helps by identifying your vulnerabilities and weaknesses before attackers do. Think of it as a proactive simulated cyber attack conducted by professionals you hire ethical hackers. By performing penetration testing, companies can find out if critical systems are hackable, whether employees can be phished, and how effective their detection and response processes are under real world attack scenarios. The findings from a pen test come in a detailed report showing what security holes were found for example, an outdated server missing patches, or a misconfigured cloud storage bucket exposing data, or the ability to guess an admin password. The report also gives recommended fixes. This lets the organization fix issues before a malicious actor exploits them, thereby strengthening overall security. Additionally, regular testing can ensure that new IT deployments apps, networks, cloud instances are secure from day one. Pen tests also exercise the incident response if the IT team doesn’t detect the tester’s actions, that’s a signal to improve monitoring. Many compliance standards require pen tests as well, as a measure of due diligence. In short, penetration testing is like a cyber health check that provides assurance and guidance on where to bolster defenses.

• What are the biggest cybersecurity threats to watch in 2025?

Based on current trends, the biggest threats in 2025 include:

• Ransomware: Still the headline threat, with increasingly sophisticated tactics double extortion, ransomware + DDoS. We see ransomware in nearly half of breaches.
• Phishing & Social Engineering: The constant top attack vector. Expect AI to make phishing even more convincing and widespread, including voice/phishing vishing and deepfakes.
• Supply Chain Attacks: Breaches involving third party partners doubled to 30%. Attackers are targeting software vendors or contractors to indirectly compromise many victims e.g. the SolarWinds style attacks.
• Cloud Exploits & Misconfigurations: As businesses migrate to cloud services, misconfigured storage or access controls are leading to data leaks. Attackers also exploit cloud tokens and secrets a rise in attacks via stolen cloud API keys.
• Insider Threats: Both malicious insiders and inadvertent insider errors. Economic pressures layoffs can increase insider sabotage or data theft.
• AI Driven Threats: Deepfake scams, AI assisted hacking tools, and attacks on AI systems themselves poisoning ML models, prompt injection are emerging. For instance, we anticipate more cases of fraud involving AI generated voices or images, as well as attackers abusing AI code assistants to find vulnerabilities faster.
• IoT and OT Attacks: The expansion of Internet of Things devices and industrial control systems online opens up new targets, think smart manufacturing, utilities. Threat actors, including nation states, may increasingly go after critical infrastructure and supply chains via these avenues.

In summary, while many threats are continuations of what we’ve seen ransomware, phishing, the novelty is in scale and technique attacks are becoming more targeted, automated, and clever, often blending multiple strategies e.g., a phishing email to deploy ransomware that exfiltrates data to leverage in an extortion. Staying ahead will require vigilance and adapting security controls to these evolving tactics.