The World Economic Forum (WEF) has brought out its latest report ahead of its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland for the world’s rich and powerful: Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025. The report recommends a shift, from cyber security to resilience โ which the report defines as an ability to mitigate the impact of significant cyber incidents.
Jeremy Jurgens, Managing Director, World Economic Forum said: “Cyberspace is more complex and challenging than ever due to rapid technological advancements, growing cybercriminal sophistication and deeply interconnected supply chains. The Global Cybersecurity Outlook equips leaders with essential insights to navigate these challenges and strengthen cyber resilience. Collaboration between public and private sector stakeholders is paramount to secure the benefits of digitalization for all.โ
In a preface to the 49-page document, he and Paolo Dal Cin, Global Security Lead, at the consulting firm Accenture, warn that despite increased executive awareness of cybersecurity risks, the complexity in cyberspace is further exacerbating cyber inequity as the resilient pull ahead, while others struggle.
The report identifies sees accelerating complexity and unpredictability in the cyber landscape. As for their impact on business and national cybersecurity posture, the authors point to supply chain risk interdependencies. That introduces vulnerabilities within interconnected supply chains, contributing to the growing complexity in cyberspace; a majority, 54 per cent of large organisations consider supply chain challenges as the greatest barrier to achieving cyber resilience.
As for geopolitical tensions, turmoil has affected the perception of risks. One in three CEOs are citing cyber espionage and loss of sensitive information or intellectual property theft as their top concern, while 45pc of cyber leaders are concerned about disruption of operations and business processes. The authors see a paradox between the recognition of AI-driven cybersecurity risks and the rapid use of AI without the necessary security safeguards to ensure cyber resilience. While most, 66pc of organisations expect AI to have a major impact on cybersecurity in 2025, only 37pc report having processes in place to assess the security of AI tools before deployment.
And as for the evolution of the threat landscape, sophistication in cyber threats enabled by emerging technologies enhances malicious actorsโ ability to operate scams and social engineering attacks, generate disinformation, and execute ransomware at a pace, scope and scale never seen before. Near half of organisations cite adversarial advancements powered by GenAI as their primary concern. While regulations bolster cyber resilience, most, 76pc of CISOs at the 2024 Annual Meeting on Cybersecurity reported that fragmentation of regulations introduces significant compliance challenges. Since 2024, the cyber skills gap has increased by 8pc, with two in three organisations lacking essential talent and skills to meet their security requirements; only 14pc of organisations are confident that they have the people and skills they need
Visit https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-cybersecurity-outlook-2025/.
