Verizon data breach report reveals surge in cybersecurity incidents

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Apr 23, 2025 - 14:45

Summary: The latest Verizon data breach report shows a sharp rise in zero-day exploits, ransomware, and third-party breaches, painting a grim picture for 2025’s cybersecurity landscape. Human error, weak credentials, and the misuse of generative AI tools continue to be major vulnerabilities, and attackers are only getting smarter.

Verizon just dropped its annual Data Breach Investigations Report, and it’s a doozy. According to the 117-page report, the message is clear: things are getting worse. This year’s edition analyzed over 12,000 confirmed breaches, and the numbers paint a pretty worrying picture of where cybersecurity stands in 2025.

The rise in cybersecurity incidents

According to the report, zero-day exploits are up 34%, hitting perimeter hardware and VPNs hard. An estimated 44% of breaches now contain ransomware. This is a huge jump of 37% year-over-year. Even though ransom payouts are falling, the attacks themselves aren’t slowing down.

Craig Robinson, Research Vice President, Security Services at IDC says, “This year’s DBIR findings reflect a mixed bag of results. Glass-half-full types can celebrate the rise in the number of victim organisations that did not pay ransoms with 64% not paying vs 50% two years ago. The glass-half empty personas will see in the DBIR that organisations that don’t have the proper IT and cybersecurity maturity – often the SMB sized organisations, are paying the price for their size with ransomware being present in 88% of breaches.”

But don’t get too comfortable just yet. The report also reveals that breaches involving vendors and external partners have doubled from 15% to 30%. That means even though your business might be spared, those in your supply chain aren’t, and they could just as likely take you down as well.

Human error is still to blame

Human error is still a top culprit. Around 60% of breaches involve people’s actions. Social engineering, credential stuffing, and reused passwords are among the main causes. The latest tools are now exploiting the same old weaknesses. For example, secrets leaked on GitHub took a median of 94 days to fix. That means that attackers had about a three-month head start, which is basically a lifetime.

Then there’s the growing role of generative AI. Verizon’s report says the use of AI-generated content in phishing emails has doubled in two years. It also turns out that 15% of employees are using GenAI tools at work regularly. Sometimes, they use them with personal accounts or unsecured logins. Combine that with the rise of espionage, which now accounts for 17% of all breaches.

That being said, Verizon’s latest report isn’t done out of the kindness of its heart. The company recently launched its new Trusted Connection program, which it hopes you will sign up for. It’s still an enlightening read, but Verizon presumably hopes that it will make its customers want to pay more to secure their connections.

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