CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report
AI-Driven Voice Phishing Surges by 442%
Global cloud-based cybersecurity company CrowdStrike announced its '2025 Global Threat Report' on the 3rd, tracking over 250 threat actors and 140 new activity clusters.
According to the report, cyber operations by China-linked threat actors increased by 150%, and generative AI-based social engineering attacks surged. Attacks without malware also saw a significant rise. In particular, China-linked threat actors conducted targeted attacks in key industrial sectors that increased by up to 300%, strengthening state-sponsored cyber operations.
China-linked cyber espionage attacks increased by 150% year-over-year, with major industries such as finance, media, and manufacturing experiencing up to a 300% surge. CrowdStrike discovered seven new China-linked hacking groups last year alone.
AI-based phishing and impersonation tactics caused voice phishing to increase by 442% in the second half of 2024 compared to the first half. Sophisticated cybercrime groups such as Curly Spider, Chatty Spider, and Plump Spider used AI-enhanced social engineering techniques to steal credentials, establish remote sessions, and evade detection. Now, 79% of initial access attacks occur without malware, and advertisements for access brokers increased by 50% year-over-year.
North Korea-linked threat actor Famous Chollima led 304 cyberattacks last year, with 40% of them being insider threat attacks. They bypassed security systems through cunning methods by disguising themselves as legitimate employees to access corporate systems and conduct malicious activities.
Adam Myers, CrowdStrike’s Head of Attack Response Operations, stated, "China’s increasingly aggressive cyber espionage activities and the rapid weaponization of AI-based deception tactics are forcing organizations to rethink their security approaches." He added, "Threat actors steal identity information and use social engineering techniques to attack across multiple domains." He further emphasized, "Because it is difficult to defend with traditional security systems alone, an integrated platform combining real-time threat intelligence and hunting with identity, cloud, and endpoint-centric correlation analysis is the key solution to eliminate security blind spots."
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