Cybersecurity has never stood still — but in 2025, it’s not just evolving. It’s transforming.

Cybersecurity has entered a pivotal new phase. According to Gartner®, Top Trends in Cybersecurity for 2025, “Security and risk management (SRM) leaders must enable business value and double down on embedding organizational, personal and team resilience to prove security program effectiveness in 2025.”*

That’s not just a shift in tactics — it’s a mandate to rethink how security supports transformation, agility, and sustainability in a world that’s constantly changing. At Rapid7, we’re offering complimentary access to this Gartner research to help you explore what’s next and how to prepare.

Here are three trends that stand out for leaders aiming to build a more resilient, AI-ready security program in 2025.

AI Is Here to Stay — and It’s Tactical Now

Security teams are moving beyond the fascination phase with GenAI. Now, it’s about real use cases with measurable benefits. Gartner states:

“SRM leaders are learning from AI transformation pilots and refining their processes based on initial success in taking a more tactical approach to AI integration.”*

Rather than chasing sweeping AI promises, forward-looking teams are prioritizing specific, achievable objectives. This approach is helping reduce risk and maintain credibility by “delivering more incremental security benefits than myopically striving for hype-driven seismic change.”*

From documentation assistance to incident triage and threat analysis, AI is no longer an experiment — it’s becoming a reliable tool for making overburdened teams more effective.

Resilience Is the New North Star

According to Gartner, we are seeing increasing recognition that a “zero-tolerance for failure” mindset has reached its peak in achieving sustainable risk buy-down and only increases the risk of security team burnout. At Rapid7, we see that In their place is a rising focus on resilience — not just in infrastructure, but in people, processes, and culture. It’s a hard pivot for many security programs built on prevention and perimeter defense, but it’s overdue.

From board-level priorities to frontline operations, security is now recognized as a business enabler. And enabling business requires adaptability. That means investing in burnout prevention, embedding resilience in security culture, and measuring success not just by how few incidents occur, but how effectively teams recover and evolve from them​.

Gartner predicts that by 2027, CISOs investing in cybersecurity-specific personal resilience programming will see 50% less burnout-related attrition than peers who don’t​.

That’s not just a wellness metric. It’s a business continuity strategy.

Less Tool Sprawl, More Platform Power

Most security teams today are managing dozens of tools. But consolidation without strategy is risky. Gartner notes that “SRM leaders are shifting focus to tool optimization rather than vendor consolidation,” urging leaders to strike a balance between integration and effectiveness.

“Organizations are seeking to strike the right balance between consolidation of commodity capabilities and purchase of separate, differentiated products to address niche requirements,”* Gartner explains. The message is clear: platform thinking matters — but only when it enhances outcomes, not complexity.

That’s why at Rapid7, we’ve built the Command platform to deliver comprehensive visibility and control, integrating detection, response, and exposure management into a unified experience backed by expert services.

The Takeaway: Secure Transformation Starts With Trust

If there’s one unifying message in Top Trends in Cybersecurity for 2025, it’s this: transformation doesn’t have to come at the cost of control. AI doesn’t have to erode trust. Automation doesn’t have to sideline expertise. And resilience isn’t a soft goal — it’s the foundation of sustainable security.

By anchoring your program in clarity, resilience, and targeted innovation, you can move faster — and more confidently — than ever before.

Ready to see what’s ahead?

Access this complimentary Gartner research to explore trends shaping security in 2025 — and how to make them work for your team.

Gartner Top Trends in Cybersecurity for 2025, Richard Addiscott, et al., 12 December 2024 GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Security leaders today face a harsh reality: traditional vulnerability management isn’t enough. Threat actors are evolving, attack surfaces are expanding, and organizations need a more proactive approach to stay ahead of risk. Latest research from Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, highlights the need for security teams to move beyond simply tracking vulnerabilities and embrace a more comprehensive approach to exposure management.

At Rapid7, we are excited to offer complimentary access to this report and share our three key takeaways to help you modernize your security strategy.

Takeaway 1: Vulnerability Lists Aren’t Enough—You Need Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

Gartner states: "Creating prioritized lists of security vulnerabilities isn’t enough to cover all exposures or find actionable solutions. Security operations managers should go beyond vulnerability management and build a continuous threat exposure management program to more effectively scope and remediate exposures."

CTEM shifts the focus from merely identifying vulnerabilities to understanding the full picture of organizational risk. It integrates asset visibility, business impact analysis, attack surface monitoring, and validation of security controls to help organizations assess and reduce their true exposure to threats.

Takeaway 2: Exposure Management Requires Business Context

One of the biggest challenges in vulnerability management today is that many security teams focus too much on discovering issues without evaluating their impact on the business. Gartner highlights the importance of integrating business context into security operations, stating that "adding a business context, such as asset value and impact of compromise, to exposure management activities can improve senior leadership engagement."

By aligning security initiatives with business priorities, organizations can:

• Focus on the vulnerabilities that pose the greatest risk to critical operations
• Improve communication with senior leadership and stakeholders
• Justify security investments with real business impact

Takeaway 3: Attack Surface Visibility Must Keep Up With Digital Evolution

Modern attack surfaces extend far beyond on-premises IT. The rise of cloud applications, IoT, supply chain dependencies, and remote work environments has dramatically increased the number of potential entry points for attackers. Gartner emphasizes that "current approaches to attack surface visibility are not keeping up with the rapid pace of digital evolution. Organizations must quickly reduce exposure to make their public-facing assets less visible and accessible."

This means security teams need to enhance their discovery processes to:

• Continuously monitor both their internal and external attack surface
• Identify misconfigurations, exposed assets, emerging threats, and weak access controls (e.g., credentials, risky users)
• Implement proactive security measures to reduce overall exposure

How Rapid7 Aligns with Gartner Exposure Management Vision

At Rapid7, we believe in empowering security teams with the tools and insights they need to shift from reactive vulnerability management to proactive exposure management. Our Exposure Management solution helps organizations:

• Gain real-time visibility into evolving attack surfaces
• Prioritize threats based on business impact and exploitability
• Continuously validate security controls through adversarial exposure testing

As threats continue to evolve, organizations must rethink how they approach vulnerability management. Gartner research provides a roadmap for security leaders looking to implement a comprehensive exposure management strategy.

Download the full Gartner report today to learn how you can modernize your security program and stay ahead of threats.

Garter, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, Michell Schneider, Jeremy D’Hoinne, Jonathan Nunez, Craig Lawson, 8 November 2024

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.