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How adversaries adapted in 2025

The Cisco Talos 2025 Year in Review is a deep dive into the tactics, techniques, and procedures that shaped adversary operations globally. Created by defenders. For defenders.

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Areas of analysis:


Watch the Year in Review highlights

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Ransomware attacks by month

January remains the least active month for ransomware activity, potentially offering a window for defenders to test readiness.

Ransomware attacks by month



Looking for more? Check out the Splunk “Top 50 Cybersecurity Threats” report.

Recent
April 28, 2026 09:23

Five defender priorities from the Talos Year in Review

With attackers moving faster than ever, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. This blog breaks down five practical priorities from the Cisco Talos 2025 Year in Review to help defenders focus and prioritize, amidst all the noise.

April 21, 2026 08:29

[Podcast] It's not you, it's your printer: State-sponsored and phishing threats in 2025

In this episode of Talos Takes, Amy and Martin Lee unpack state-sponsored and phishing trends from the 2025 Talos Year in Review.

April 21, 2026 08:00

Phishing and MFA exploitation: Targeting the keys to the kingdom

In 2025, attackers increasingly targeted weaknesses in multi-factor authentication (MFA) workflows, and phishing attacks leveraged valid, compromised credentials to launch lures from trusted accounts. The trends focused entirely on trust, or the lack thereof, in everyday business operations.

April 10, 2026 11:29

[Video] The TTP Ep. 22: The Collapse of the Patch Window

In this episode of The Talos Threat Perspective, we discuss how vulnerability exploitation is accelerating, and why attacker speed, AI, and exposed systems are affecting the patch window.

April 9, 2026 06:00

From the field to the report and back again: How incident responders can use the Year in Review

The Year in Review distills Talos IR's observations into structured intelligence, but defenders should also be feeding this report back into their own preparation cycles. Here's how.

April 7, 2026 08:03

Talos Takes: 2025's ransomware trends and zombie vulnerabilities

In this episode of Talos Takes, Amy and Pierre Cadieux unpack the ransomware and vulnerability trends that defined 2025.

April 7, 2026 06:00

Year in Review: Vulnerabilities old and new and something React2

The year was characterized by an unending beat-down on infrastructure that relied on older enmeshed dependencies (e.g., Log4j and PHPUnit), while React2Shell rocketed to the highest percentage of attacks for the entire year within the last three weeks of 2025.

April 2, 2026 09:06

[Video] The TTP Ep 21: When Attackers Become Trusted Users

An episode of the Talos Threat Perspective on the 2025 Year in Review trends. We explore how identity is being used to gain, extend, and maintain access inside environments.

April 2, 2026 06:00

Inside the Talos 2025 Year in Review: A discussion on what the data means for defenders

A conversation between Cisco Talos and Cisco Security leaders on the 2025 threat landscape, from identity attacks and legacy vulnerabilities to AI-driven threats, and what defenders should prioritize now.

March 31, 2026 06:00

Ransomware in 2025: Blending in is the strategy

A summary of the top ransomware trends from the Talos 2025 Year in Review, with a focus on identity, attacker tactics, and practical defenses.

March 26, 2026 08:48

Talos Takes: 2025 insights from Talos and Splunk

This episode of Talos Takes breaks down the 2025 Year in Review as well as Splunk's Top 50 Cybersecurity Threats report.

March 23, 2026 08:55

Beers with Talos breaks down the 2025 Talos Year in Review

The Beers with Talos team unpack the biggest cybersecurity threats of 2025, from React2Shell to ransomware and identity abuse, and what it all means for defenders going forward.

March 23, 2026 08:01

2025 Talos Year in Review: Speed, scale, and staying power

The 2025 Talos Year in Review is available now. Understand evolving adversary playbooks and how to strengthen your organization’s defenses.