Is Your Cybersecurity Ready for AI in 2025?

KPMG’s report guides CISOs in navigating 2025’s cyber landscape, including AI trust, the human element, platform consolidation, and digital identity.

The digital landscape continues evolving rapidly, bringing forth transformative opportunities and an amplified urgency for robust cybersecurity. The proliferation of AI, innovative technologies, and an increasingly complex regulatory environment reshape how businesses and governments approach digital defense. KPMG’s Cybersecurity Considerations 2025 report sheds light on these pressing challenges, offering a pragmatic roadmap for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and organizations to build resilience and embed trust in an AI-dominated world.

The Ever-Evolving Role of the CISO: From Enforcer to Business Leader

The CISO’s role is no longer confined to technical gatekeeping; it’s transforming into a strategic business function. Heightened regulatory scrutiny, increased accountability, and the pressure to deliver flawless security outcomes drive this shift. CISOs are now expected to be adept at risk management, skilled communicators, and influential leaders who can bridge the gap between complex technical requirements and high-level business objectives. 

They must understand the organization’s critical assets and the vectors bad actors tend to use, ensuring proactive, not reactive, security measures. This involves clarifying limits of authority and fostering collaboration across departments, including finance, sales, and engineering, to ensure security objectives align with overall business outcomes.

The Human Element: Powering Cybersecurity with People and Culture

Despite technological advancements, the human element remains the most critical factor in the fight against cyber threats. The persistent cybersecurity skills gap, exacerbated by rapidly evolving technologies, necessitates a holistic approach to talent. Organizations must empower their workforce with the necessary tools, cultivate a robust security culture, and strengthen the talent pipeline.

AI, while a game-changer for security functions like threat detection and incident response, is essentially an enabler for human teams, not a replacement. It automates routine tasks, freeing up cyber professionals for more complex, strategic initiatives. However, this requires continuous learning and upskilling in AI concepts like prompt engineering and data analysis. Building a strong cybersecurity culture means everyone actively manages cyber risks, recognizing that people are the most vigorous defense when properly engaged. This involves bridging the gap between security teams and the broader workforce, fostering a shared understanding of risks, and prioritizing user-friendly security processes that reduce friction and promote compliance.

Also Read: Why Are Most Companies Falling Short on Data Resilience?

Embedding Trust as AI Proliferates: Governance and Vigilance

The rapid adoption of AI across industries brings significant value and introduces new security and privacy challenges. CISOs must prioritize embedding trust within AI models and processes through robust governance programs. This involves understanding where and how AI is used, identifying vulnerabilities, and ensuring data quality, as poor data yields poorly performing AI models.

The risks range from operational disruptions and algorithmic bias to legal and compliance issues. The emergence of “shadow AI”—AI systems deployed without oversight—poses a particular threat, as biased outputs could impact business decisions. Organizations must establish AI procurement, deployment, and monitoring policies and collaborate across business, IT, and security teams to mitigate these risks. CISOs should also explore new security tools that analyze AI usage patterns and prioritize ethical considerations, transparency, and accountability in AI development.

Harnessing AI for Cyber: Racing Ahead vs. Racing Safely

While AI offers immense potential to increase efficiency, cut costs, and improve risk management in security operations centers (SOCs), organizations must build a strong security foundation before diving headfirst into AI adoption. Cybersecurity practices like patch management and secure identity access are non-negotiable prerequisites.

The hype around AI can lead to a fear of missing out (FOMO), but CISOs need to set realistic expectations and make strategic, measured investments. The challenge lies in identifying AI use cases with the most significant impact, such as analyzing large data volumes for threat detection or automating repetitive tasks.

However, CISOs must also prepare for AI-powered threats like deepfakes, which can easily create convincing manipulated content for social engineering and disinformation. This necessitates investing in advanced AI-driven security tools to detect manipulated content and educating employees about these evolving risks. 

Platform Consolidation: Streamlining for Efficiency and Control

The sheer volume of disparate cybersecurity tools has created a complex patchwork that is difficult to manage and integrate. Many organizations are now exploring platform consolidation for greater efficiency, improved visibility, and enhanced control. This streamlining helps enforce consistent security policies, closes vulnerabilities, and is crucial for implementing Zero Trust frameworks.

Consolidation also yields significant cost savings through reduced maintenance, training, and support. A more focused set of tools enables security teams to better harness the power of AI by consolidating data sources. However, CISOs must be aware of concentration risk and potential vendor lock-in. A hybrid approach, relying on platform providers for foundational security and augmenting with purpose-built solutions, can offer necessary resilience and flexibility.

Also Read: How is GenAI Reshaping Cyber Threats and Defenses?

The Digital Identity Imperative: Securing the New Perimeter

Digital identities are central to an agile and efficient digital world, but securing them is increasingly challenging due to inadequate systems, the rise of deepfakes, and the proliferation of machine identities. New, more advanced security mechanisms and a holistic understanding of the identity landscape are urgently needed.

Compromised biometric data poses significant, long-lasting risks, and deepfakes blur the lines between reality and manipulation, creating opportunities for impersonation and misinformation. CISOs must adopt a proactive and collaborative mindset, engaging stakeholders from top to bottom, to ensure secure and transparent identity management. This includes adhering to principles of least privilege and need-to-know to prevent the accumulation of excessive access.

Governments also play a crucial role in enabling trusted digital identity ecosystems through programs like Australia’s “Trust Exchange” and Estonia’s lifelong digital identity, prioritizing transparency and user control. 

Smart Security for Smart Ecosystems: Protecting Connected Assets

The explosion of smart devices and IoT products, from automobiles to medical instruments, has expanded the attack surface, aligning physical and digital threats in unprecedented ways. CISOs must adopt a product-centric approach to security, embedding it throughout the entire lifecycle of smart devices, from secure design to decommissioning. 

This includes managing the prolonged lifecycle of smart products (e.g., automobiles that can be in use for decades) and accounting for supply chain vulnerabilities by maintaining a detailed software bill of materials (SBOM). Emerging regulations like the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and the UK PSTI Act are setting new standards for secure connected hardware and software, requiring manufacturers and suppliers to comply. 

Resilience by Design: Cybersecurity for Businesses and Society

Resilience is paramount, moving beyond prevention to focus on rapid response and recovery from cyber incidents. This means strengthening cyber resilience through comprehensive asset management—knowing what needs to be secured, including mission-critical systems outside traditional IT environments that run factories or energy grids. 

The increasing likelihood of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, motivated by financial gain or geopolitical issues, can lead to devastating societal harm. Organizations must also account for the expanded attack surface created by third-party relationships, as a single vulnerability in an external provider can jeopardize the entire system. Adopting a holistic approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of physical and virtual threats is essential for protecting against the full spectrum of attacks. Governments can support these efforts by facilitating information sharing and working to disrupt cybercriminal syndicates. 

Also Read: AI, Quantum and Digital Cloning Shape Key Cybersecurity Trends

Conclusion

The cybersecurity landscape in 2025 demands a proactive, integrated, and strategically aligned approach. CISOs are at the forefront of this transformation, leading their organizations to embed trust in AI, empower their people, consolidate platforms, secure digital identities, and build resilience by design. By embracing these key considerations, businesses can not only safeguard their digital assets but also leverage cybersecurity as a true enabler of strategic objectives and sustained growth.