What is Cybersecurity & Why Should You Care In 2025

As per the FBI’s Internet Crime Report 2024, Almost 334,000 cyber fraud complaints had been reported which resulted into loss of an estimated $13.7 billion. Cyber enabled fraud & scams constituted 83% of the total financial losses reported.

Cybercrimes are estimated to amount to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Directly related costs to cybercrimes include damaged data, lost funds, losses in productivity, losses in intellectual properties through thefts, losses in individual data including bank data through thefts, forgery, disruptions after a breach to normal business organizational operations, investigation, restoration and erasing compromised data and systems, as well as losses due to reputation.

Definition of cybersecurity and its importance

Cybersecurity is a method of protecting data from any unauthorized access. For an individual like you data can be your personal information like your name, Address, Banking Credentials or your personal photos. Its basically any personal information which by all means is only yours. For an organization it could be the list of employees, Customers or the financial status. Now the question is how come this information is unsafe. Its because all these information is stored in electronic devices like computer, mobile devices physical & cloud databases. And in order to function properly this data keeps moving from one place to another for regular business. Let me explain by giving you a simple example for better understanding.

Example – Lets take a scenario where there is an individual who would like to apply for home loan in in a reputed company. He will go to the official website>Click on apply and start filling the required steps. Where in he will be giving all the details like Name, Address, Phone Number, Banking Details and etc. And will finally apply on submit and wait for the company to respond. You see the data has started to flow from point A to point, Why? because data needs to keep moving in order to perform daily functions. As per the secure transfer the data needs to reach to a database which can only be accessed by the manager for the company. That is what we want and should be the ideal situation. But lets say due to some technical failure this data goes to a hacker/online attacker. This will no longer be called a secure network for transition of data. Now the question arisis that how can someone else access my data?

 

• • May be your phone/computer was hacked by a cyber criminal.

• • May be the Wifi was compromised which you used to get online.

• • May be the website you used was a dummy website.

• • May be the database of company was breached.

In simple worlds the moment your data entered the digital network there is a risk that it might be accessed, misused or tempered. Hence cybersecurity awareness is really important to each and every person out because you never know that what actually is broken.

Real Life Threats

Ransomware

Ransomware still remain as the one of the largest cyber threat during the current year 2025 and has risen by 126% compared to the previous year 2024. More advanced tactics have came in play like double extorsion where in the attacker steals & encrypt the data and threatens to publish it across dark web if the ransom is not settled.

Social Engineering

With advancement is AI and deep fakes this attacks have become more prominent. Attackers are misusing this technologies for their personal gains. Now it has became easier for them to manipulate the users psychologically to make a mistake & give away sensitive information.

AI Cyber Threats

AI has made life easier for everyone with automation widely being used in real time. Hence attackers have developed more powerful tools to find vulnerabilities on large scale& that too in rea time. These Malicious AI now can use personalization for each user and takes decisions automatically which has became harder for us to keep a track of them.

Phishing

Phishing is still a major threat in 2025 which includes 36% of all the data breaches that has occurred recently. With help of sophisticated AI tools and automation more than 3.4 Billion phishing emails are being sent out daily. Every cybercrime is mainly initiated by a successful phishing attack.

Supply Chain Attack

Supply chain attacks are on the increase over the last few years, and this is expected to persist over 2025. Cybercriminals prey on third-party vendors or suppliers to break into larger enterprises as they capitalize on the level of trust and access given to such outside parties.

Why personal cybersecurity matters today

Now so many elements of daily life are tied into the internet, the consequences of doing nothing about cybersecurity are quite severe. It is hence our own responsibility to stay informed.

Privacy – Company data as well as customers data are exposed.

Cyber hackers and criminals are continually on the prowl for ways to dismantle vulnerabilities in people or systems to ease them of data such as passwords, credit card information, and social security information. Picture having a wake-up to discover your bank account has been depleted, credit cards are maxed out, or you’ve had your identity stolen.

Data economy: Ever-increasing large volumes of sensitive data are stored.

While large-scale corporate breaches rightfully dominate news reports, individual users are just as soft a target and the payoff just as devastating.

Infrastructural risk : Cyber attacks strike critical systems.

These are not unrealistic situations in the modern world. Now they are targeting different sectors like energy, transportation & public services to cause physical damage, interrupt businesses and also to causes loss of lives.

Global risk: Cybersecurity threats could affect a nation, economy, or world-wide infrastructure

Its clear that it has great potential to shake whole nation to its roots. Since the internet has connect the whole world its risks does impact globally.

What Happens If You’re Not Careful?

Neglecting personal cybersecurity can have long-lasting consequences, some of which can take months or even years to resolve:

Identity Theft –

This can break you mentally and your reputation is at high risk if your identity is ever stolen. Regaining access your own bank account & personal estate even harder.

Monetary Loss –

Cyber criminals can breach our bank account & credit cards. They can also use our sensitive information to borrow loan and push us in a financial crisis.

Data Loss –

You could loose your personal photos or access to your work files if proper precautions aren’t taken. Ransomware attack could log you out of your personal device/files & could risk loosing data if the ransom is not payed to attackers.

Privacy Risk –

They can gain access to your private photos, chats or emails & use them to blackmail you. And if that sensitive data is published across web could tarnish your public reputation.

Everyday actions for better cyber hygiene

 

Poor cyber hygiene is also known as the absence or negligence of security measures that increase risk for a cybersecurity breach to happen. For example, using poor passwords, not getting software updates with new patches, not backing up data, or even using no antivirus software are some among the examples where poor cyber hygiene happens. Poor cyber hygiene means systems and data can easily fall prey to all kinds of cyber security threats from infection to unwanted access. Enhancement in cyber hygiene means adoption of simple security measures like software updates, secure and unique passwords, multi-factor authentication, and awareness campaigns which help people get aware about the importance of security in everyday operations.