5 ways to align your cybersecurity with World Economic Forum (WEF) guidance
2025 could be the most challenging year yet for the digital environment. As emerging factors such as the duality of AI, the rise in cybercrime, or the shortage of cybersecurity talent impact business, we ask the question, what should companies expect going forward?
The World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 report highlights that we have reached a critical point where traditional cybersecurity models are being threatened by these risks and only the organizations that manage to build resilience will be able to move forward, while the rest will encounter serious difficulties.
Companies need to analyze and understand these trends to address the challenges arising in our increasingly digital world.
Top 5 Cyber Challenges and How to Protect Your Company
We list the top cyber risks according to the WEF below and explain how to secure your business in each case:
- Supply chain vulnerabilities: 54% of large organizations point to supply chain risks as one of the biggest obstacles to reaching cyber resilience. Conducting regular risk assessments and implementing a zero trust approach to limit user access to restricted systems is key to mitigating their impact.
- Impact of AI on cybersecurity: Although 66% of organizations anticipate that AI will have a significant impact on cybersecurity over the course of this year, only 37% claim to have processes in place to assess the security of these tools prior to deployment. This shortfall highlights the discrepancy between the growing concern over the risks of AI and its rapid adoption without adequate measures to ensure cyber resilience. Device security is critical to reduce these risks and can be achieved by using threat detection and response tools, as well as by implementing solutions to protect sensitive data.
- Impact of generative AI on cybercrime: Nearly half of organizations report that advances in generative AI-driven cyberthreats are their chief concern, as they enable more sophisticated and scalable attacks. An upward trend in social engineering and phishing attacks was already observed in 2024 after AI use became more widespread. To mitigate these risks, it is essential to invest in training to detect phishing and strengthen awareness of spoofing tactics.
- Regulatory fragmentation: The growth of regulatory frameworks and lack of harmonization between them poses a major challenge for organizations. Around 80% of CISOs at the WEF 2024 Annual Cybersecurity Meeting noted that regulatory disparity across jurisdictions hinders compliance substantially. To address this challenge, it is key to adopt a layered security strategy, with multi-factor authentication (MFA) playing a key role in securing access to systems and data.
- Shortage of cybersecurity talent: The report finds that two out of three organizations face skills gaps and only 14% report having the right team in place to meet their security needs. Relying on an MSP helps fill this gap, providing companies with access to specialized expertise and elevating security without relying exclusively on in-house talent.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the challenges pinpointed by the WEF demonstrate that cybersecurity will continue to be a determining factor in business resilience over this year. To address these risks, companies need to adopt a comprehensive security approach so that they can provide an agile response. Implementing a unified security platform makes this task easier by consolidating multiple layers of protection into a single environment, incorporating identity, endpoint, and network security, which optimizes threat detection, prevention, and response.
If you are interested in finding out more about how WatchGuard's Unified Security Platform can safeguard your business, check out our blog posts below:
