Gartner Identifies the Top Cybersecurity Trends for 2025

Gartner has rolled out a series of top cybersecurity trends for 2025, noting a heavy influence by the evolution of generative AI, digital decentralizing, supply chain interdependencies, regulatory change, endemic talent shortages and a constantly evolving threat landscape.

“Security and risk management (SRM) leaders face a mix of challenges and opportunities this year, with a goal to enable transformation and embed resilience,” said Alex Michaels, Senior Principal Analyst at Gartner. “Their efforts in achieving both are crucial to support their organization’s aspirations to not only innovate, but ensure their innovations are secure and sustainable in a fast-changing digital world.”

Among the top trends, Gartner says that GenAI is now the driving force behind data security programs. Most security efforts and financial resources are traditionally focused on protecting structured data such as databases, according to the company’s research. However, the rise of GenAI is transforming data security programs, shifting focus to protect unstructured data — text, images and videos.

Another key trend involves managing machine identities. Increasing adoption of GenAI, cloud services, automation and DevOps practices, has led to the prolific use of machine accounts and credentials for physical devices and software workloads. If left uncontrolled and unmanaged, machine identities can significantly expand an organization’s attack surface. According to Gartner, SRM leaders are under pressure to build a strategy to implement robust machine identity and access management (IAM) to protect against attacks, but it must be a coordinated enterprise-wide effort. A Gartner survey of 335 IAM leaders globally, conducted between August and October 2024, found that IAM teams are only responsible for 44% of an organization’s machine identities.

Gartner points to a third trend involving SRM leaders facing mixed results with their AI implementations, leading them to reprioritize their initiatives and focus on narrower use cases with direct measurable impacts. These more tactical implementations align AI practices and tools with existing metrics, fit them into existing initiatives, and enhance visibility of the real value of AI investments.

Next comes Cybersecurity Technology Optimization. According to a Gartner survey of 162 large enterprises, conducted between August and October 2024, organizations use an average of 45 cybersecurity tools. With over 3,000 vendors in cybersecurity, SRM leaders need to optimize their toolsets to build more efficient and effective security programs. Gartner recommends aiming for a balance that procurement, security architects, security engineers, and other stakeholders are satisfied with to maintain the right security posture. To achieve this, SRM leaders should consolidate and validate core security controls and focus on architecture that enhances portability of data.

Gartner clients can read more in “Top Trends in Cybersecurity for 2025.”

Channel Impact^®
Channel partners should closely examine these trends in contrast with their current service offerings. Additional means of adding value will likely be found.