CISO2025 Concerns and Priorities:AChallenging Year Ahead John Horn This report provided compliments of: November 2024 John Horn Table ofContents Summary and Key Findings....................................................................................................3Introduction..............................................................................................................................5Methodology........................................................................................................................6Market Trends...........................................................................................................................7AI Cyber Concerns Are Increasing.........................................................................................9Customer Channel Top Concerns........................................................................................12Top Cyber Investments Tied to Business Growth...............................................................14Cyber Investments Supporting 2024 Business Growth.................................................14Corporate Enterprise Top Concerns....................................................................................17Enterprise Data Breaches via Phishingof Workforce Users..........................................18Top 2025 Cyber Investments for Enterprise by Budgeted Amount.................................20Cloud Security Improvements..........................................................................................21Enterprise Data Security Improvements..........................................................................22Cyber GRC Improvements for the Board and C-Suite of the Business........................23Conclusion..............................................................................................................................25List ofFigures Figure 1: FI Business Risk Concerns Related to AI-enabled Attacks..................................9Figure 2: Top Cyber Risks for FS Customer Channel.........................................................12Figure 3: Cyber Investments Most Connected to 2024 Business Growth.......................14Figure 4: Cyber Investments MostConnected to 2025 Business Growth.......................15Figure 5: Top Cyber Risk Concerns for the FS Corporate Enterprise..............................17 List ofTables Table A: Trends for FS CISO Concerns and Priorities..........................................................7 Summary and Key Findings With continued data breaches, new attack vectors,and challenging economic conditions,2024 presented many difficulties for CISOs at financialinstitutions (FIs), insurers, and otherfinancial services (FS) firms. Artificial intelligence (AI) concerns and hype continued todominate the market in 2024, with generative AI(GenAI)tools available for attackers fortwo full years. As criminal teams evolved their use of AI-enabled attack tools (akaadversarial AI),cyberattackscontinued to become more sophisticated and delivered at As 2024 projects and tasks head totheir conclusion, CISOs andbusinessleaders areincreasingly focused on the new year. Final adjustments to 2025 cyber budgets arebecoming complete. With a growing attack surface,acharge to defend the enterprise,andacall to support business growth,CISOs and other cyber risk leaders have a dauntingtask for the new year. Driven to reduce assessed risk, support business growth, achieveoperational efficiencies, and comply with regulations, CISOs have decided where to placetheir bets for 2025. While every firm is unique and internal perspectives are invaluable, •Entering 2025, CISOs and cyber risk leaders are more concerned about AI-enabledcyberattacks than they were one year ago:Increased awareness of deepfakes and impacts of downtime for consumer digital servicesonthe businesshavebecome •CIAM investments to increase fraud detection rate and elevate resilience of consumerdigital services are the top cyber investments tied to business growth:Businessleadership for consumer services urgently needs cyber assistance to shore up fraud •Data breaches via phishing of workforce members and the resilience of the digitalenterprise are the top concerns for the FS corporate environment:Phishing, spearphishing, and social engineering of the workforce became widespread in 2024, •Improvements to cloud security, data security, and board-level cyber GRC tools arethe largest budgeted cyber investments for 2025:Most FS firms operate as multicloudenterprises, which have become the key fulcrum toboostoperational cloud maturity Introduction Cybersecurity for FIs, insurers, and other FS firms owes its historical roots to informationtechnology,focused on technicallyoriented information security (InfoSec) concerns andsolutions within the IT estate. For the past two decades, CISOs and their teams have beenforced to defend their digital businesses in the context of a rapi