On February 27, CrowdStrike released its 2025 Global Threat Report, exposing the growing aggression of China’s cyber operations, a surge in GenAI-powered social engineering and nation-state vulnerability research and exploitation, and a sharp increase in malware-free, identity-based attacks. The report reveals that China-nexus adversaries escalated state-sponsored cyber operations by 150%, with targeted attacks in financial services, media, manufacturing and industrial sectors soaring up to 300%.
At the same time, adversaries worldwide are weaponizing AI-generated deception, exploiting stolen credentials and increasingly executing cross-domain attacks—exploiting gaps across endpoint, cloud and identity— to bypass security controls and operate undetected in the shadows. The shift to malware-free intrusions that exploit trusted access, combined with record-shattering breakout times, leaves defenders little room for error. To stop modern attacks, security teams need to eliminate visibility gaps, detect adversary movement in real-time and stop attacks before they escalate—because once they’re inside, it’s already too late.
“China’s increasingly aggressive cyber espionage, combined with the rapid weaponization of AI-powered deception, is forcing organizations to rethink their approach to security,” said Adam Meyers, head of counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike. “Adversaries exploit identity gaps, leverage social engineering and move across domains undetected—rendering legacy defenses ineffective. Stopping breaches requires a unified platform powered by real-time intelligence and threat hunting, correlating identity, cloud and endpoint activity to eliminate the blind spots where adversaries hide.”
Source: CrowdStrike
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