2025 Cybersecurity Priorities: Top 3 Focus Areas for Cybersecurity Leaders

2024 brought challenges that felt like they were straight out of a sci-fi novel: generative AI-fueled attacks, deepfake-driven extortion campaigns, and third-party breaches that reverberated through global supply chains. As we move into 2025, cybersecurity leaders face a critical turning point. Organizations must proactively focus on three key 2025 cybersecurity priorities: AI cybersecurity updates, deepfake defense, and third-party risk management (TPRM) to stay ahead of new attack trends.

In the inaugural episode of Cyberside Chats, LMG’s CEO Sherri Davidoff and Director of Training Matt Durrin broke down these priorities and offered actionable strategies to help CISOs and IT leaders get ahead. As Matt said, “The risks aren’t theoretical anymore—AI tools are being weaponized at scale.” Let’s dive into the key challenges and takeaways for your 2025 cybersecurity program!

The Top Three 2025 Cybersecurity Priorities

1. AI Cybersecurity Updates: Inventory, Assess, and Secure

AI tools are everywhere, but organizations often overlook their presence in personal devices. With BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies becoming commonplace, employees are using AI-enabled tools like Apple Intelligence or Gemini on personal phones and laptops. These tools are integrated into daily workflows, creating potential blind spots for security teams.

Key Steps to Address AI Risks

The first step to address this issue? Take stock of your AI landscape. Our team has developed an AI security checklist and a foundational step is to conduct an inventory of your AI systems. Many organizations start with paid AI products such as CoPilot or ChatGPT—but make sure to include third-party AI tools, organizational AI systems, and even personal devices equipped with AI assistants if you allow BYOD. “The key is visibility,” Sherri says. “If you don’t know where AI is being used in your organization, you can’t manage the risk. Every organization should conduct this inventory as part of their 2025 cybersecurity plan.”

Next, conduct an AI Risk Assessment to uncover vulnerabilities such as adversarial attacks, data leakage, or model poisoning. You should include the following activities:

• • Inventory AI Technology: Identify and document all AI systems, models, and tools used in your organization, including third-party services and personal devices.
  • Evaluate AI-Specific Threats: Assess vulnerabilities unique to AI, such as adversarial attacks, model poisoning, or data leakage from training sets.
  • Regulatory Compliance Check: Ensure AI implementations meet applicable regulatory and industry standards (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, NIST AI RMF).

How do you assess AI-specific threats like adversarial attacks, model poisoning, and data leakage? That is a much longer conversation, but here is a quick summary.

1. 1. Test for Adversarial Vulnerabilities: Use tools like CleverHans to simulate adversarial attacks and evaluate model robustness.
   2. Secure Training Data: Ensure training datasets are clean, access is restricted, and processes are monitored for tampering.
   3. Check for Data Leakage: Perform tests like membership inference attacks to detect potential leaks and implement differential privacy techniques.
   4. Monitor and Harden AI Systems: Regularly update and test AI systems, restrict access, and use adversarial training to strengthen defenses.

Staying proactive with regular testing, monitoring, and securing data pipelines is key to mitigating AI-related risks.

2. Deepfake Defense: Preparing for the Inevitable

Deepfakes have evolved from a novelty to a critical 2025 cybersecurity challenge. In 2024, organizations faced CEO impersonation scams, fraudulent video messages, and deepfake-driven misinformation campaigns that disrupted businesses and tarnished reputations. Read our blog on the top three AI scams and how to protect your organization for more details.

Sadly, we are also predicting more reputation-based cybersecurity threats in 2025. Imagine this: A realistic deepfake video of your CFO announcing a financial collapse on social media. Within minutes, stock prices plummet, and your PR team is scrambling to control the fallout. These scenarios are all too plausible now that deepfake and voice cloning technology are widely available.

Steps to Build a Deepfake Defense Strategy

Deepfakes exploit trust—whether it’s a fraudulent CEO call or a manipulated video—and organizations must be ready to respond within minutes, not hours. To prepare, you should:

• • Follow our LMG Security Adapting to AI Risks checklist by developing a Deepfake Response Plan.
  • Incorporate cybersecurity awareness training for all employees, and train them to identify and report suspicious content. Check out our tip sheet on how to turn your employees into a human firewall.
  • Update incident response plans for scenarios like deepfake extortion and synthetic media targeting leadership.
  • Prepare PR and communication strategies to mitigate reputational harm.

“Deepfakes will happen—and anyone in your organization may be a target.” Sherri advises “Make sure you plan your deepfake response so you’re not taken by surprise.”

3. Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM): Securing the Supply Chain in an AI World

Third-party vendors remain one of the biggest risk vectors in cybersecurity. In 2025, this risk is amplified as AI tools infiltrate supply chains, often without proper security controls. It can be helpful to get expert support in developing a TPRM management plan, and the LMG advisory services group has helped many organizations build strong, realistic plans.

AI in the Supply Chain: Hidden Risks

When it comes to AI and your supply chain, consider two scenarios:

• • AI Products: Dedicated AI products pose unique risks, such as data leaks from poorly secured training datasets based on your information.
  • Vendor AI: Existing vendors may have suddenly started using AI products in multiple ways. It’s critical to ask additional questions and understand the risks to your data and operations. Will your sensitive information and files be part of their AI LLM search results for all of their employees? Beyond the troubling cybersecurity concerns, you should also look at the business risks. If they are using AI to make recommendations (especially financial and healthcare-related recommendations), is their data hygiene appropriate? Did their data training set introduce bias? It’s crucial to consider these issues in your 2025 cybersecurity and business risk planning.

Real-World Example: ATSG and Boston Children’s Health

The recently announced data breach of Boston Children’s Health highlights the risks of supply chain breaches. The healthcare facility’s IT service provider, ATSG, was breached by a ransomware group called BianLian. The criminals gained direct access to the hospital’s data servers, stealing the information of over 900,000 people. Even though Boston Children’s Health wasn’t directly breached, its name made headlines, causing reputational and financial damage. This incident underscores why third-party risk management is critical.

TPRM Best Practices for 2025

AI amplifies third-party risks, so leaders must ask: How is my vendor using AI, and what risks does that introduce? To manage AI-specific third-party risks, organizations must:

• • Incorporate AI-specific risk assessments into vendor vetting processes.
  • Update vendor contracts with clauses addressing AI security, data protection, and liability.
  • Regularly evaluate AI products/services used by third parties for security gaps.

In 2025 You’ll Need to Focus, Prepare, and Adapt

Next year will be challenging and the stakes have never been higher. Your 2025 cybersecurity plan must prioritize:

1. AI Cybersecurity Updates: Inventory AI tools, assess risks, and secure deployments.
2. Deepfake Defense: Train teams, update incident response plans, and prepare PR strategies.
3. Third-Party Risk Management: Audit vendors, secure AI supply chains, and demand transparency.

The rise of AI, deepfakes, and interconnected vendor risks demand proactive leadership. By focusing on these 2025 cybersecurity priorities, organizations can fortify defenses and prepare for the threats of tomorrow.

Next Steps

• Check out LMG Security’s Adapting to AI Risks Checklist to get started.
• Watch the full Cyberside Chats episode for expert insights and practical advice.

Let’s make 2025 the year of proactive cybersecurity leadership!

Please contact us if you need help with AI policy development, technical testing, advisory services, or training. Our expert team is ready to help!