Top challenges for CISOs in 2025

Top challenges for CISOs in 2025

2025 will present a great deal of challenges for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) with threats becoming more evolved and complex and regulatory requirements for information security and privacy becoming stricter.  The role of CISOs will considerably expand. 

Let us look at what cybersecurity experts have predicted to be the most immediate challenges for CISOs in 2025. 

Top 5 challenges for CISOs in 2025

1. The rise of evolved cybersecurity threats  

CISOs will face an increased challenge of formulating defense mechanisms, controls, and measures against evolving cyber threats, especially those involving the weaponization of AI.

Given the predicted rise of cyber threats due to weaponized AI, there is a rise in threats like phishing, the spread of misinformation, and the use of deepfakes for monetary and political motives. CISOs will face increased pressure to step up organization’s cybersecurity resilience.

2. Visibility and control challenges

With the rising complexity of cybersecurity solutions and increasing reliance on multiple vendors for security, CISOs will face an increased challenge with limited visibility, control, and insights into security posture. It will be challenging for them to establish additional layers of visibility and controls for improvement because data will be scattered around multiple solutions and environments across the infrastructure.

3. Vendor and third-party risks

Supply chain breaches have caused operational disruption and chaos among the biggest brands. Companies like Starbucks were forced to shift to manual processes due to ransomware attacks on supply chain technology provider Yonder. Third-party risks will most likely rise in 2025, with threat actors looking for weaknesses in the infrastructure of third-party vendors and suppliers. CISOs will face a challenge in managing third-party risks.

4. Skills gap/Human error

The cybersecurity skills gap grows at a rate of 19.1% on a year-on-year basis (ISC2), and it is one of the biggest challenges for CISOs in 2025. Cybersecurity solutions like SIEM, MDR, XDR, etc., require specialized skills to manage. The shortage in cybersecurity talent will make it challenging for CISOs to ensure cybersecurity resilience causing a significant impediment to operations from threat hunting or incident response. 88% of CISOs expressed that lack of skilled staff and attrition rates have caused operational issues (CommandZero,2024).

5. Cybersecurity compliance regulations

Businesses paid around 2.4 billion Euros in fines for the violation of general data processing principles alone in 2024. This figure could rise in 2025. CISOs will face increased pressure from regulatory bodies to comply with cybersecurity and data protection regulations like GDPR, ISO27001, PCI DSS, and others. With regional compliance regulations for almost every country (more than 170+ countries!), CISOs will have a tough time ensuring that the cybersecurity measures align with the regional compliance regulations.

Some shocking facts to consider  

(Source – Gartner. PWC,Commandzero)  

• 90% of CISOs have responded that complying with regulations will be a challenge 
• 55% of organizations were concerned about cyber criminals using AI-based malicious tools to improve cyber attacks in 2025 
• 72% of CISOs reported that they faced challenges with visibility and traceability of an attacker across the stack  
• 80% of CISOs found tracking and compliance with requirements overly complex