The year trust broke: How cyberattacks in 2025 escaped the screen & hit the real world

In 2025, cybercrime stopped looking like a technical problem and started behaving like a systemic one. Attackers no longer relied solely on obscure malware or suspicious emails. Instead, they embedded themselves into platforms people trust, services economies depend on, and digital habits that feel routine and safe.

From ransomware crippling global transport networks to phishing emails sent from legitimate Meta domains, from malware hidden in YouTube tutorials and GitHub repositories to NFC payment fraud and location-sharing risks on social media, the year revealed a stark reality, the more interconnected and convenient our digital ecosystems become, the more powerful they are as attack surfaces.

What unites these incidents is not their targets, but their strategy, exploiting trust at scale to turn digital access into physical, financial, and societal disruption.

Target Travelers

Recently, Cyble Inc. released its Transport & Logistics Threat Landscape Report 2025, revealing a sharp escalation in cyber threats targeting ...