Critical Review: The Top 10 Cybersecurity Predictions of 2025 vs. Reality

Posted on January 4, 2026 by Jason Lewis

Introduction: The Prediction Accountability Report

Every year, the cybersecurity industry produces a deluge of predictions that shape strategy, influence budgets, and set market expectations. But how accurate are they? This report conducts a forensic analysis of the top 10 cybersecurity predictions made for 2025, comparing the forecasts from late 2024 against the documented reality of what transpired.

By critically evaluating where the industry was right, where it was wrong, and—most importantly—why, we can identify the systemic biases in our forecasting and build a more reliable model for the future. This is not just an academic exercise; it is a crucial accountability report that provides actionable lessons for leaders, strategists, and practitioners.

The Top 10 Predictions of 2025: A Critical Review

These ten predictions represent the most prominent and recurring themes from industry leaders and aggregators like Dan Lohrmann (GovTech), IBM, Google/Mandiant, and Trend Micro, as forecasted in late 2024.

Prediction 1: “Agentic AI” Emerges as a Hot New Threat

  • Source: Industry Consensus, led by Dan Lohrmann’s aggregation [3].
  • The Prediction: Autonomous AI systems, capable of independently planning and executing multi-step attacks, would move from theory to reality.
  • What Actually Happened: In his 2025 year-end review, Lohrmann confirmed this as the “Agentic Code Tipping Point,” a defining theme of the year. While a fully autonomous end-to-end campaign was not publicly documented, the underlying capabilities (reasoning, planning, tool use) in models like GPT-5 matured significantly, and attackers began leveraging these agentic capabilities for sophisticated reconnaissance and exploit development.
  • Accuracy: 8.5/10 – ✅ Highly Accurate & On Schedule
  • Critical Analysis: This prediction was spot-on. It was realistic because the rapid evolution of LLMs in 2024 made agentic capabilities the logical next step. The prediction was not for a full Skynet scenario but for the emergence of the threat, which is exactly what happened. It came true because the technology matured as expected, and the economic incentive for attackers to automate complex tasks is immense.

Prediction 2: AI-Driven Scams and Deepfakes Will Surge

  • Source: Universal Consensus (Lohrmann #2, MES Computing #1, etc.) [1, 3].
  • The Prediction: Generative AI would lead to an epidemic of highly realistic deepfakes, voice scams, and personalized phishing at an unprecedented scale.
  • What Actually Happened: This prediction was not only accurate but dramatically underestimated. A Gartner report in September 2025 found that 62% of businesses had experienced a deepfake attack, and Pindrop reported a 173% increase in synthetic voice fraud [1].
  • Accuracy: 10/10 – ✅ Accurate & Underestimated
  • Critical Analysis: This was the most realistic and easily foreseeable prediction of 2025. The technology was already accessible in 2024, and the barrier to entry for creating convincing fakes was rapidly falling. It came true because the tools became commoditized, making it trivial for even low-skilled attackers to launch sophisticated social engineering campaigns. The lesson here is that when a threat is tied to the democratization of technology, its scale will almost always exceed expectations.

Prediction 3: Ransomware Evolves With Automation and AI

  • Source: Industry Consensus (Lohrmann #3, MES Computing #2) [1, 3].
  • The Prediction: Ransomware groups would integrate AI to create polymorphic malware, automate lateral movement, and enhance extortion tactics.
  • What Actually Happened: ESET discovered “PromptLock” in December 2025, the first known AI-driven ransomware capable of generating malicious scripts on the fly. Overall ransomware attacks increased by an estimated 40% YoY [1]. The primary evolution was the widespread adoption of double extortion (data exfiltration), which AI was used to parse for more effective psychological targeting.
  • Accuracy: 9.0/10 – ✅ Highly Accurate
  • Critical Analysis: This was a highly realistic prediction. Ransomware is a mature, profitable criminal enterprise, and its operators are rational economic actors who will always adopt efficiency-boosting technology. The prediction came true precisely because AI offered a clear ROI for attackers in terms of speed, scale, and evasion.

Prediction 4: Supply Chain Attacks Will Be on the Rise

  • Source: Industry Consensus (Lohrmann #4, MES Computing #4) [1, 3].
  • The Prediction: Attacks targeting open-source dependencies, software vendors, and MSPs would increase in frequency and impact.
  • What Actually Happened: This prediction was 100% accurate. Research from Cyble showed that the rate of software supply chain attacks exactly doubled in 2025, jumping from an average of 13 per month to 26 per month starting in April [2]. High-profile incidents like the Change Healthcare and Sisense breaches underscored the systemic risk.
  • Accuracy: 10/10 – ✅ Accurate & Quantitatively Confirmed
  • Critical Analysis: This was a safe but important prediction. The trend was already well-established, and the increasing complexity of software made it an inevitability. It came true because the attack surface is enormous and defending the entire software supply chain is an intractable problem for any single organization.

Prediction 5: The Cybersecurity Skills Gap Will Widen, Especially in AI

  • Source: MES Computing, IBM, and others [1, 4].
  • The Prediction: Organizations would struggle to find and retain cybersecurity professionals with the necessary AI skills to combat new threats.
  • What Actually Happened: This was fully validated. A 2025 survey confirmed that 75% of organizations could not find IT staff skilled in AI. Talent advisory firms noted that employees who proactively upskilled in AI were being promoted, while those who didn’t were being left behind.
  • Accuracy: 9.5/10 – ✅ Highly Accurate
  • Critical Analysis: This was another highly realistic prediction, bordering on an observation of an existing trend. The explosion of AI in 2024 created an immediate and massive demand for skills that the labor market had not had time to produce. It was a simple case of demand vastly outstripping supply.

Prediction 6: Geopolitical Cyber Warfare Will Intensify

  • Source: Dan Lohrmann’s aggregation (Trend #6) [3].
  • The Prediction: Nation-state activity from the “Big Four” (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea) and their proxies would increase, targeting critical infrastructure and pre-positioning for future conflicts.
  • What Actually Happened: This was confirmed throughout 2025. Reports detailed Russia’s multi-year campaigns against Ukrainian logistics, China’s embedding of backdoors in solar inverters, North Korea’s creation of fake US companies to target crypto, and Iran’s modification of MFA registrations for persistent access.
  • Accuracy: 9.0/10 – ✅ Highly Accurate
  • Critical Analysis: This was a continuation of a long-running trend, making it a high-probability forecast. It came true because the underlying geopolitical tensions did not de-escalate, and cyberspace remains a primary domain for espionage, sabotage, and power projection below the threshold of conventional warfare.

Prediction 7: Post-Quantum Threats Will Accelerate

  • Source: Dan Lohrmann’s aggregation (Trend #7), IBM [3, 4].
  • The Prediction: The transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) would become urgent as “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks become a major concern.
  • What Actually Happened: The prediction was directionally correct but overstated the urgency and speed of adoption. NIST finalized the first PQC standards in August 2024, and major vendors like Cloudflare made significant progress, with over 50% of their traffic using PQC by October 2025. However, broad protocol integration was slower than predicted, and government deadlines were set for 2030-2035, not 2025.
  • Accuracy: 6.5/10 – ⚠️ Directionally Correct, but Timeline Optimistic
  • Critical Analysis: This prediction fell into the classic Emerging Technology Timeline Trap. While the threat is real, the prediction underestimated the inertia of global standards bodies, the complexity of enterprise-wide crypto-agility, and the long timelines of government mandates. It was realistic to predict progress, but unrealistic to predict widespread acceleration and urgency in a single year. It will come true, but on the 2028-2035 timeline set by regulators.

Prediction 8: IoT and Edge Devices as Growing Attack Vectors

  • Source: Dan Lohrmann’s aggregation (Trend #8) [3].
  • The Prediction: The billions of poorly secured IoT and edge devices would become a primary target for large-scale attacks.
  • What Actually Happened: While attacks on IoT devices certainly occurred (e.g., the Chinese solar inverter incident), they did not materialize into the massive, landscape-defining threat that was predicted. As one year-end report noted, IoT “gotten off relatively easy” in 2025 compared to the surge in AI-driven and supply chain attacks.
  • Accuracy: 5.0/10 – ⚠️ Partially True, but Overstated
  • Critical Analysis: This prediction has been made for nearly a decade, and while it remains a real risk, it consistently fails to become the dominant threat. It was realistic in theory but failed to account for the economics of attack. Attackers in 2025 found a higher ROI in targeting scalable vectors like software supply chains and social engineering rather than fragmented and diverse IoT ecosystems. This threat remains latent and will likely materialize when other avenues become better defended.

Prediction 9: AI-Powered SOCs Will Redefine Defenses

  • Source: Dan Lohrmann’s aggregation (Trend #9) [3].
  • The Prediction: Security “co-pilots” and AI-driven SOCs would become central to defense, improving threat detection and response.
  • What Actually Happened: This was highly accurate. The emergence of sophisticated AI threats created a massive market demand for AI-powered defenses. Major security vendors heavily invested in and marketed their AI SOC capabilities, and adoption began in earnest. It became clear that the only way to fight AI-driven attacks was with AI-driven defense.
  • Accuracy: 9.0/10 – ✅ Highly Accurate
  • Critical Analysis: This was a logical and realistic prediction. It followed the simple action-reaction principle of cybersecurity: new offensive capabilities inevitably drive the development of corresponding defensive capabilities. It came true because the market demanded it as a direct response to the threats outlined in predictions #1, #2, and #3.

Prediction 10: Identity Becomes the New Security Perimeter

  • Source: IBM and others [4].
  • The Prediction: The focus of security would continue its shift from network-based perimeters to identity-based controls (Zero Trust, Identity-First strategies).
  • What Actually Happened: This trend continued its steady march toward becoming the default security paradigm. The surge in credential-based attacks and the rise of remote work solidified the business case for Zero Trust architectures. While not a dramatic “2025 event,” it was a correct and important strategic forecast.
  • Accuracy: 8.5/10 – ✅ Highly Accurate (as a continuing trend)
  • Critical Analysis: This was a very safe prediction, as it was an observation of a multi-year trend. It was realistic and came true because the underlying drivers (cloud adoption, remote work, credential theft) all remained strong. It highlights that some of the most valuable predictions are not about novel threats but about the continued momentum of critical strategic shifts.

Key Patterns & Lessons Learned

Our review of the 2025 predictions reveals three critical patterns that form the basis of the Prediction Reliability Framework:

PatternDescriptionLesson for 2026 Forecasting
1. AI & Mature Threats Are ReliablePredictions about AI enhancing existing, profitable attack vectors (phishing, ransomware) were 90-100% accurate.Trust these predictions. When AI is applied to a known, working attack method, it will happen as forecast.
2. Threat Volume Is Always UnderestimatedPredictions of a “surge” or “increase” in deepfakes and supply chain attacks were directionally correct but failed to capture the true scale (62% of businesses, 100% increase).Apply a multiplier. When forecasters say “increase,” mentally adjust the scale by 1.5x to 2.0x for a more realistic picture.
3. Emerging Tech Timelines Are Overly OptimisticPredictions about Post-Quantum and, to a lesser extent, IoT threats were directionally right but years too early. They underestimated institutional inertia and complexity.Add a time buffer. For any prediction involving a fundamental shift in technology or standards (like PQC), add 2-3 years to the timeline for a more accurate forecast.

Conclusion: The Anatomy of an Accurate Prediction

The most accurate predictions for 2025 were not wild guesses about novel threats. They were grounded extrapolations of existing trends, driven by clear economic and technological incentives. The industry was right about the what (AI, supply chain) but often wrong about the when (PQC) and how much (deepfake volume).

This review demonstrates that the future is, to some extent, knowable. By understanding the patterns of past forecasts, we can critically evaluate new ones, adjust for their inherent biases, and ultimately make better, more resilient strategic decisions.

References

[1] MES Computing. (2025, December 22). Cybersecurity Predictions: 5 That Came True In 2025, and 5 More For 2026. https://www.mescomputing.com/news/security/cybersecurity-predictions-5-that-came-true-in-2025-and-5-more-for-2026

[2] Cyble. (2025, September). Supply Chain Attacks Double in 2025. https://cyble.com/blog/supply-chain-attacks-double-in-2025/

[3] Lohrmann, D. (2024, December 20). The Top 25 Security Predictions for 2025 (Part 1). GovTech. https://www.govtech.com/blogs/lohrmann-on-cybersecurity/the-top-25-security-predictions-for-2025-part-1

[4] Poremba, S. (Late 2024). Cybersecurity trends and predictions for 2025. IBM Think. https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/cybersecurity-trends-ibm-predictions-2025

[5] Lohrmann, D. (2025, December 14). 2025: The Year Cybersecurity Crossed the AI Rubicon. GovTech. https://www.govtech.com/blogs/lohrmann-on-cybersecurity/2025-the-year-cybersecurity-crossed-the-ai-rubicon

[6] Westerbaan, B. (2025, October 28). State of the post-quantum Internet in 2025. Cloudflare Blog. https://blog.cloudflare.com/pq-2025/

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