Only 41% of respondents believe their cybersecurity budgets will increase in the next 12 months, compared to 47% last year.

18% of survey respondents believe their cybersecurity budgets will decrease in the next 12 months, compared to 13% last year.

The percentage of respondent enterprises that provided training to allow nonsecurity staff to move into security roles dropped considerably, from 41% last year to just 29% this year.

The top method to address technical skill gaps is increasing usage of contract employees or outside consultants (30%), which is a decline from 36% last year.

Nearly half of financial services organizations (49%) operate without formal AI policies.

Prior hands-on cybersecurity experience is considered very important by 60% of respondents, marking a decline from 73% last year.

Employer-paid employee certification fees dropped to the second most common benefit, offered by only 54% of respondents, a decrease from 65% in 2024

High work-stress levels, limited promotion and development opportunities, and recruitment by other enterprises are the top reasons cybersecurity professionals leave their current roles.

91% of payment leaders express concern regarding the risks associated with AI.

60% of payment leaders find the current AI fraud detection tools ineffective.

66% of respondents indicate that their cybersecurity roles are significantly or slightly more stressful now than five years ago.

The complex cyber threat landscape is cited as the main reason for stress by 63% of respondents in 2025, down from 81% in 2024.

Soft skills are the largest reported skill gap in cybersecurity, increasing from 51% in 2024 to 59% in 2025.

Half of respondent enterprises have challenges retaining qualified cybersecurity professionals, which is the lowest percentage reported since 2020.

Nearly 45% of business leaders believe Gen Z employees are more likely than other generations to leak company information.

A quarter (25%) of business leaders report seeing Gen Z employees use company logos, contracts, or pay stubs in videos.

18% of business leaders say a Gen Z employee has leaked confidential information.

25% of business leaders say Gen Z employees posted screenshots of sensitive Slack or Teams chats online.

In Q2 2025, 13% of malicious emails (phishing, malware, etc.) were not blocked by the email gateway security system. This is 1 percentage point higher than in Q1 2025.

In Q2 2025, 40% of all detected cyber threats (malware, phishing payloads, etc.) were sent inside archive files (like .zip, .rar, .7z). This share is 2 percentage points higher than in Q1 2025.