Reducing Cyber and Compliance Risks in 2025: Less Talk – More Action

In 2024, cybercriminals accelerated their efforts to steal and exploit sensitive data from enterprises across sectors. Many of these efforts succeeded with a staggering 1.1 billion records exposed last year alone.

Throughout 2024, these data breaches wreaked havoc in organizations and consistently made headlines. Some of the largest headline-making breaches last year included:

National Public Data – One of the largest data leaks on record, this massive data breach impacted 2.9 billion U.S. citizens, exposing private data including full names, Social Security numbers and addresses.

Ticketmaster – In this breach, cybercriminals stole the personal data of 560 million Ticketmaster customers worldwide and attempted to sell that information online.

Change Healthcare – The largest healthcare data breach ever reported to federal regulators, this data leak affected over 100 million customer records.

AT&T – The personal information of 73 million customers was compromised in this data breach. Breached data included the full names, email addresses, mailing addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and Social Security numbers of impacted customers.

Dell Computers – Approximately 49 million customers were impacted by this data breach. Customer names and addresses, as well as details of hardware purchases, warranty details, and service tags were exposed in this breach.

These data breaches and many others that made headlines in 2024 underscore the existential threat posed by cyberattacks and serve as stark reminders for organizations to take actionable steps now to protect data privacy and security.

Moving into 2025, the cyber risks associated with emerging technologies including AI and quantum computing further escalate the urgent imperative for enterprises to deploy secure, next generation mobile messaging technologies now to protect the security and privacy of business communication.

AI

Enterprises are increasingly accelerating adoption of AI to automate tasks, improve data analysis and decision making, personalize customer experiences, and more. According to a survey by McKinsey, AI adoption by respondent organizations, which hovered at about 50% over the last six years, jumped to 72% in 2024.

As organizations continue to integrate AI into their technology stacks, security and compliance risks grow.

In 2025, one of the biggest AI risks will be data breaches caused by employees unintentionally sharing sensitive information with AI platforms. Data from CybSafe reveals that 93% of workers are potentially sharing confidential information with AI tools. Sensitive data entered into AI systems can be exposed if that data is not adequately protected, or the AI system itself is compromised.

Data breaches are not the only AI risk organizations will have to contend with in 2025. Compliance risks are also rising.

Compliance with industry-specific and general AI data privacy regulations is becoming increasingly complex for organizations as policy makers continue to address issues associated with the technology including data privacy and security, manipulation of AI models, and misuse of AI-generated content.

In the U.S. last year, at least 45 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C., introduced AI bills, and 31 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands adopted resolutions or enacted AI legislation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Outside the U.S., the European Union (EU) enacted the world’s first comprehensive AI regulation to foster trustworthy AI in Europe and beyond.

Take action to reduce AI cyber and compliance risk

As the power of generative AI makes its way into communication and collaboration tools, enterprises need to deploy mobile messaging technology with the built in security features and administrative controls critical to safeguarding networks and preventing unauthorized access to sensitive data.

In 2025, enterprises can act to ensure their business communication is secure and compliant by deploying AI-powered mobile messaging platforms built for the enterprise.

Not all AI-powered communication and collaboration solutions are enterprise-grade - NetSfere is.

NetSfere’s AI-driven mobile messaging platform unlocks the full value of AI safely and securely while improving workflows, streamlining communication, and increasing productivity. It provides a secure AI experience unique to each organization without integrating with any open source chat/AI functionalities and without any data or information ever leaving the enterprise.

Quantum Computing

Last year marked the rise of quantum technology. Developments like Google’s new quantum chip called Willow significantly accelerated the advent of commercially viable quantum computing.

Quantum computing promises to solve problems with unprecedented processing speeds. Consider that Willow performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 1025 or 10 septillion years. That’s a one followed by 24 zeros.

The threat of advancing quantum technology for enterprises is the looming ability of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) to break most public-key encryptions that currently secure digital communications. While quantum breakthroughs like Willow can’t yet break current encryption protocols, it is only a matter of time before the technology matures enough to do so.

Even with commercially viable quantum computers some years away, organizations are facing quantum cyber threats now.

Cybercriminals are deploying “harvest-now, decrypt-later” (HNDL) attacks to steal encrypted data, storing it until they can use quantum computers to decrypt it. They are mining data from messaging apps, collaboration tools, and other systems, putting sensitive business data at risk of exposure and exploitation.

Quantum-resistant algorithms called post-quantum cryptography (PQC) have been developed to protect against HNDL and future quantum attacks. In 2024, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) officially released its first three quantum-resistant encryption standards and encouraged system administrators to start integrating these encryption standards into their systems immediately.

As a post-quantum future looms, enterprises can expect policymakers to begin addressing compliance requirements related to PQC standards. This will require organizations to ensure their cryptographic practices are compliant with evolving regulations and standards.

Take action to reduce quantum computing cyber and compliance risk

Any enterprise that uses asymmetric encryption algorithms like RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) to secure digital communication is at risk of quantum threats.

In 2025, organizations must speed up the transition to PQC to ensure their business communication and critical systems are quantum safe.

NetSfere future-proofs business communication, protecting business communication against looming quantum threats. NetSfere's crypto-agile architecture features seamless integration of post-quantum cryptography that ensures digital communication remains secure now and in the quantum era.

Stop talking about improving cybersecurity and compliance and do it NOW

Data breaches are not going away in 2025. Rapidly evolving AI and quantum computing technologies will escalate data breach risks, creating significant cybersecurity and compliance challenges for enterprises.

In 2025 and beyond, enterprises need secure, agile solutions that defend against the threats of today and tomorrow.

That’s just what NetSfere does.

An AI-driven enterprise, quantum-safe platform, NetSfere helps organizations build the most secure, compliant digital workplace with industry leading PQC end-to-end encryption, full IT control, guaranteed compliance, and no data collection ever.

As data breaches continue to pose an existential threat to organizations, it’s time to stop talking about improving cybersecurity and compliance and take action NOW to safeguard business communication.