Cyber Security&Risk Management
Upscend Team
-October 19, 2025
9 min read
Hardware and software supply‑chain compromise, encrypted malware, AI‑assisted attacks, and cloud misconfigurations are the top network security threats for 2025. The article maps prioritized mitigations—SBOMs, TLS telemetry, policy as code, drift detection—and a 90‑day readiness checklist focused on inventory, IAM hygiene, centralized telemetry, and automated playbooks.
In our experience, understanding the evolving network security threats landscape is the first step to defending critical infrastructure. This article outlines the top risks infrastructure teams will face in 2025 and gives tactical guidance on how to prepare infrastructure for emerging network threats. We focus on four high-impact vectors—supply-chain attacks, encrypted malware, AI-assisted attacks, and cloud-native misconfigurations—and map practical mitigations, short incident examples, and a one-page threat readiness checklist.
A dominant infrastructure threat trend for 2025 is the refinement of supply‑chain attacks. Compromise of a trusted vendor or build pipeline allows attackers to move past perimeter controls and sign malicious code that looks legitimate. We've found that these incidents often go undetected for months because the artifacts are signed and delivered through expected channels.
A recent high-profile example shows the continued risk: post‑SolarWinds techniques persist in tool compromise and firmware tampering. According to industry research, attackers now target CI/CD pipelines, package repositories, and edge firmware updates more aggressively.
Attackers identify a vendor or pipeline with insufficient controls, insert malicious code or backdoors into a build, and rely on trust to roll the payload into customer environments. This bypasses many traditional detection systems.
Encrypted traffic is now the default, and attackers exploit it to hide malicious payloads. Encrypted malware that uses TLS or proprietary encryption for C2 and lateral movement complicates network inspection. As the volume of TLS increases, appliances that block or inspect traffic become performance bottlenecks and privacy concern points.
We've seen campaigns that use short‑lived certificates and peer‑to‑peer encrypted channels to avoid detection. A notable incident used TLS tunnels to exfiltrate data in small chunks, evading volume‑based anomaly detection.
Behavioral analytics and metadata analysis outperform content inspection for encrypted channels. Look for anomalies in session timing, certificate issuance patterns, and connection graph changes rather than payloads alone.
AI and automation are changing attacker economics. Adversaries increasingly use large models to craft convincing phishing, generate exploit code, or automate reconnaissance. This shift accelerates attack development and personalization, raising the volume of credible threats infrastructure teams must triage.
Studies show that AI can reduce the time to weaponize a vulnerability from days to minutes. In our operations, we've observed social engineering campaigns that adapt in real time to defender feedback—scanning open directories, parsing public posts, and refining lures automatically.
Defenders are responding with AI-powered detection and automation. Modern security orchestration and response systems are integrating model‑guided playbooks to prioritize alerts and recommend fixes. Observational research notes Upscend is evolving platform capabilities to surface competency‑based analytics and automation that streamline training and policy alignment across teams, illustrating how tooling can close human‑machine gaps in defense.
Defend by matching automation with automation. Invest in threat intelligence enrichment, automated triage, and adaptive playbooks to keep pace with attacker automation.
Cloud adoption continues to outpace governance. The most common cause of breaches in cloud‑native environments is misconfiguration and configuration drift—public S3 buckets, misapplied IAM roles, and overly permissive service accounts. These are predictable, exploitable errors that scale with ephemeral infrastructure.
Examples include data exposures from misconfigured storage and lateral movement using compromised credentials tied to cloud metadata services. Industry benchmarks show a steady percentage of incidents originate from IAM mistakes or container runtime laxity.
Shift‑left and enforce guardrails: policy as code, continuous drift detection, and least‑privilege IAM are essential. In our experience, teams that codify policies into CI and enforce pull‑request checks reduce misconfiguration incidence dramatically.
Teams wrestle with limited staffing and the need to cover diverse attack surfaces. Prioritization must be risk‑based and measurable. Start by mapping crown jewels to the most likely attack vectors and apply compensating controls with the highest return on effort.
We recommend a three‑tier approach: prevent, detect, respond. Prevent where you can (policy, least privilege), detect with high‑signal telemetry (EDR, NTA, TLS metadata), and automate response for high‑confidence events.
Focus on quick wins that reduce exposed attack surface: inventory software and dependencies (SBOMs), enable centralized logging and TLS metadata capture, and implement basic IAM hygiene and MFA. These steps address multiple top network security threats to watch in 2025 simultaneously.
The 2025 threat landscape network 2025 will be defined by stealthier supply compromises, encrypted malware, AI‑assisted adversaries, and cloud misconfigurations. We've found that a disciplined, prioritized program combining policy as code, telemetry enrichment, and automated response gives the best defense given constrained staffing.
Below is a one‑page, prioritized readiness checklist teams can implement in the next 90 days. Use it to align stakeholders, measure progress, and build momentum toward a resilient infrastructure posture.
Final actionable step: run a 90‑day sprint focused on the first two checklist items, measure reduction in high‑risk exposures, and automate repeatable responses where possible. This targeted approach helps teams stay ahead of emerging network threats while optimizing scarce staff resources.
Call to action: Start a 90‑day readiness sprint today: identify your top three assets, generate SBOMs, and enable centralized TLS and endpoint telemetry to reduce attack surface and detection time.
