Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report 2025

Keypoints

• The report is structured into sections covering results and analysis, incident classification patterns, industry-specific data, regional insights, and methodological appendices, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding cybersecurity incidents.
• It highlights that exploitation of vulnerabilities reached 20% as an initial access vector, marking a 34% increase from the previous year, with edge device and VPN exploits growing nearly eightfold to 22%, emphasizing the importance of patch management.
• Despite organizations patching over half of edge vulnerabilities within a median of 32 days, many remain exposed, increasing risk, especially for organizations relying heavily on remote and distributed workflows.
• Ransomware incidents increased by 37%, affecting 44% of breaches, but the median ransom paid decreased to $115,000, with non-payment rising to 64%, pointing toward evolving attacker tactics and defense strategies.
• Third-party involvement nearly doubled, with breaches involving third parties rising from 15% to 30%, illustrating the escalation of supply chain and external vendor risks in the cybersecurity landscape.
• The analysis notes a rise in espionage-motivated breaches at 17%, often leveraging unpatched vulnerabilities, and highlights the widespread presence of credential reuse and theft, especially in BYOD environments.
• Use of infostealer malware affects both managed and unmanaged devices, with significant implications for credential security, particularly through compromised enterprise logins and public code repositories.
• Emerging threats include the use of generative AI by malicious actors, with increased malicious email content and concerns over data leakage via AI tools, reflecting the evolving attack surface in AI-integrated environments.
• The report advocates for stronger vendor and cloud platform security practices, emphasizing shared responsibility models and the need for robust authentication measures like MFA to mitigate third-party and supply chain risks.