The world of cybercrime is always changing, and in 2025, threat actors are more strategic and dangerous than ever. While their goal remains the same (make money), the methods have become more aggressive, layered, and damaging.
Wire Fraud: The Silent, Costly Threat
Wire fraud is one of the most common, and financially devastating attacks we see right now. Cybercriminals are infiltrating email accounts, often through compromised vendors or partners, and quietly redirecting wire transfers to their own bank accounts.
What makes this so dangerous? The transactions look legitimate. The names, timing, and language are all right. By the time fraud is detected, the money is gone, often unrecoverable.
If your finance team hasn’t been trained to verify account changes and double-check payment instructions outside of email, you’re vulnerable.
Ransomware Has Evolved, and It’s Not Just About Encryption Anymore
Five years ago, ransomware was about one thing: encrypting your systems and demanding payment for a decryption key. That model exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic, with ransomware incidents rising over 300%.
But in 2025, encryption is just the beginning.
Now, threat actors are inside your network exfiltrating data before they ever lock your files. That means even if you have solid backups and can recover your systems without paying a ransom, you may still be facing a second ransom demand, one that’s tied to the threat of your data being published or sold.
Double Extortion: Pay Twice or Pay the Price
The rise of double extortion has changed how businesses respond to ransomware attacks. Instead of just paying to regain access, victims are also being extorted to keep their sensitive data out of the public eye.
The type of data being stolen is strategic and often devastating:
- Energy Companies are losing intellectual property like engineering schematics, project plans, and customer pricing.
- Healthcare Organizations are seeing protected health information (PHI) stolen, triggering mandatory breach reporting and HIPAA compliance issues.
- Professional Services Firms may have confidential client records or sensitive contracts exposed.
Threat actors know exactly which industries are most likely to pay, and how much that data is worth to you (and to them).
What This Means for Your Business
This shift in tactics means you’re no longer just protecting systems, you’re protecting your reputation, your compliance posture, and your business relationships.
It also means your incident response needs to evolve. It’s not enough to plan for system recovery. You also need to:
- Know what data is most valuable to attackers
- Understand your legal and regulatory obligations in the event of a breach
- Be ready to make difficult decisions under pressure
Don’t Wait Until It Happens, Plan Now
Cyber threats aren’t slowing down, and they’re not getting any simpler. If your business hasn’t revisited its security strategy recently, now’s the time.
If you’re concerned about evolving threats, or if your incident response plan is outdated or missing altogether, we’ve got your back. Talk to our team at Aldridge to strengthen your defenses or download our free incident response template to make sure you’re not starting from scratch.
Your business may not be able to stop every attack, but you can be ready.