Given the increasing number and magnitude of cyber attacks in recent years ranging from stolen personal data and sudden system shutdown of banks or supermarkets, industry experts, regulators as well and commoners are on high alert for cyber threats that have become more likely. In a recent correspondence, Qrator Labs Chief Technology Officer Andrey Leskin shared with BusinessToday the key areas of concern for cybersecurity in 2025.
Hype Around AI
First and foremost, cybersecurity guardians will become more sceptical about artificial intelligence (AI) modules and will scrutinise AI from various angles as the world is set to enter into a new year in less than three weeks. Both AI developers and AI users might see the introduction of useful solutions to monitor and detect cyber threats next year even though these tools are unlikely to fully eradicate cyber attacks in AI-powered machines or networks.
The monitoring measures will take into consideration that the initial heightened excitement surrounding AI will diminish somewhat when reality sets in. For instance, leading AI chipmaker Nvidia Corp’s stock price rallied from US$46.05 to the high of US$152.89 within a year, representing a 232% increase within 52 weeks. As of Monday’s closing, Nvidia’s stock stood at US$138.81, down US$14.08 from the 52-week high.
Also, the AI industry is subject to various regulatory and market forces that could stiffen its growth trajectory. Case in point, Nvidia’s shares plunged 2.5% on Monday following Chinese regulators’ antitrust probe into its operations, triggering a 0.45% drop in the broader information technology sector.
GenAI
Another growing trend in 2025 is the use of Generative AI (GenAI) in cybercrimes to carry out attacks on individuals and businesses alike, mostly by deception. One of the most dangerous tools is deepfakes, which can convincingly mimic a person’s voice, face, and other personal attributes.
This is a concern not only for employees but for employers and investors too. Employees might receive an order from a cybercriminal who disguises themself by showing their boss’s number, demanding that they take specific actions such as sending a crucial approval document or transferring an amount of money from the bank account. These instructions could sound as if they are told by an actual boss, and this may pose a serious and dangerous threat to business.
LLM
In 2025 or early 2026, the first reports of significant attacks on large language models (LLMs) might surface. This threat has been echoed for years given the widespread integration of chatbots into various products and services. But now it seems more real than ever.
An LLM is a computational model designed to predict with high probability, or in entirety, sentences, paragraphs, or even whole documents, compared to early language models that could predict up to a single word. The capability of LLMs has exploded over the last few years owing to supercharged computer memory and processing power, and more effective modelling techniques for modelling longer text sequences.
Cryptocurrency & Bitcoin
Looking ahead into 2025, cyber attacks which target cryptocurrency infrastructure will be going up, especially in light of the rising valuation and acceptance of cryptocurrency.
For example, the world’s best-known cryptocurrency Bitcoin, also known as BTC, soared past the US$100,000 threshold early this month, reaching the historic high of US$103,647 on Dec 5. Around 2008 when the Bitcoin network was first launched, Bitcoin was valued at zero. The price of bitcoin first broke over US$100 in 2013 to US$111, and later that year in December, Bitcoin rose dramatically higher hitting a new all-time high at over US$1,000. Four years later, in 2017, bitcoin rose to US$10,000 and continued to surge past US$100,000 in 2024, within just seven years or so.
As of Malaysian local time 12:09pm Dec 10 (UTC 4:09am Dec 10), Bitcoin BTC traded at US$96,559.02.
The wider acceptance and practical use of Bitcoin will likely result in a rise in cyber extortion attempts that demand payment in BTC, in addition to security breach targeting the trading platforms of Bitcoin.
Quantum Computer
While many people expect the arrival of quantum computers in 2025, experts think otherwise. The significant events in the field of quantum computing have indicated that quantum computers will finally emerge in 2026. Quantum computing reportedly could boost internet and network security toward near-unhackability.
The field of quantum computing contains a range of disciplines, including quantum hardware and quantum algorithms that are still in development. It is envisioned that quantum technology will soon be able to solve complex problems that supercomputers can’t solve, or can’t solve fast enough.
According to IBM’s web information, quantum computers can encode even more data at once using quantum bits, or qubits, while classical computers rely on binary bits (zeros and ones) to store and process data. With leading institutions such as IBM, Microsoft, Google and Amazon investing heavily in this new technology, quantum computing is estimated to become a US$1.3 trillion industry by 2035.
