This year, cybercrime got a teenage makeover. Groups like Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, part of the loose collective ‘The Com’ and filled with young, radicalized hackers, became a top threat. Their aggressive tactics led to high-profile breaches in 2025, including attacks on Marks & Spencer, the Co-op, and Jaguar Land Rover. Meanwhile, insider attacks exploded: employees secretly working for ransomware gangs, zero-day brokers selling to Russia, and a million-dollar-worth crypto heist at Coinbase. In 2025 we also saw AI evolve from being a futuristic threat to a threat which can power real malware, with AI tools like Claude helping criminals automate attacks at terrifying speed. We sat down with Rebecca Taylor, Threat Intelligence Knowledge Manage & Researcher at Sophos and Will Thomas, Senior Threat Intelligence Advisor at Team Cymru, to discuss 2025’s highs and lows in cybersecurity and cybercrime – and to make educated guesses on what to look for in 2026. Their prediction? That 2026 could bring live deepfake heists (imagine a fake CEO on a video call draining company funds) and nation-states weaponizing insiders for destructive cyberwar. This episode is sponsored by SailPoint.
