The CISO is the arbiter of confidence and protection for the business in a world of geopolitical strife and shifting allegiances; regulatory hurdles and changes to AI and tech; quickly emerging and changing technologies in generative AI (genAI); and constantly evolving cybercriminal activity, including deepfakes. In 2025, five threats will affect security teams more than any other: global regulatory disruptions, high-quality deepfakes, tech exuberance over genAI, job loss radicalization, and genAI-driven extortion. Security pros need to prepare in advance.Key takeaways: Global regulatory disruptions: Data-related policies, regulations, and standards are becoming less aligned between domains and across countries.High-quality deepfakes: Attackers are increasingly using deepfakes because of their ability to cast doubt on security, trust in the media, and brand reputation. Deepfakes impact verification and authentication for almost every user group, including customers, business partners, and workforce members.Tech exuberance over genAI: Enterprise adoption of genAI continues to accelerate as models proliferate, training costs come down, and deployment options increase. But tech and security leaders are learning hard lessons about how different models behave — and the work required to make them secure — as new models emerge.Job loss radicalization: A new economic reality has emerged in 2025 with a flurry of activity that saw job cuts to 4% of the US federal government workforce, massive tech layoffs, and job cuts in Europe. Employees who remain after layoffs are not happy.GenAI-driven extortion: Between continued law enforcement disruption of ransomware gangs and enterprises’ greater focus on business resilience and data backups, ransomware became less lucrative for cybercriminals in 2024. Before genAI, stealing data was only so useful — reviewing millions of emails takes far too much time. Now, with genAI, attackers can perform a quick sentiment analysis on troves of stolen data for extortion schemes.Target audience level: intermediate

Economic uncertainty and market volatility are forcing executives and business leaders to revisit budget planning with much higher expectations. As you tackle 2026 planning, how can you make the biggest impact with lasting benefits rather than one-time reductions? Join Jess Burn and Jeff Pollard for this interactive discussion with fellow security and risk leaders on your plans, priorities, and initiatives for the upcoming year, guided by Forrester’s 2026 Budget Planning Guides. Leave the conversation with new ideas for how to meet the growth challenges of 2026 and beyond.Questions for discussion:Where are organizations maintaining, cutting, or increasing current investment?How do I obtain greater enterprise intelligence to connect budgets with specific investments?How do I build an optimization mindset? Peer discussions are available exclusively to Forrester Decisions VIP Leaders and Leader license holders for their own participation.