Inside the Verizon 2025 DBIR: Five Trends That Signal a Shift in the Cyber Threat Economy

The 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) provides one of the clearest views yet into how cybercrime is evolving into a mature, interdependent ecosystem. With over 12,000 breaches analyzed, this year’s report reveals a landscape shaped by not just individual threats, but by entire economies of compromise—where infostealers, access brokers, ransomware actors, and third-party platforms are intricately linked.

Summary of Key Takeaways

• Infostealers and ransomware now operate as part of a coordinated threat supply chain, increasingly enabled by traffic distribution systems and malicious adtech infrastructure.
• Vulnerability exploitation—particularly of edge and VPN devices—is sharply up, fueled by automation and rapid weaponization of zero-days.
• Third-party involvement in breaches has doubled, underscoring the fragility of modern supply chains and the blurred lines of accountability.
• Secrets leakage and credential reuse continue to plague developers and ops teams, giving attackers silent access to high-value environments.
• The unsanctioned use of ...