Every year I conduct a year end review to understand the patterns that shaped our cybersecurity landscape. 2025 was very different. Things broke. Critical systems failed. Government oversight shifted in real time. Most importantly, Washington introduced a true enforcement mechanism for cybersecurity with meaningful financial consequences. The Department of Defense, now operating as the Department of War, became the first agency to make cybersecurity a mandatory and enforceable condition of federal work. Other departments will follow. The first domino has already fallen.
The events of 2025 were not random. They formed a clear pattern that revealed how fragile our digital infrastructure has become. The longest government shutdown in United States history exposed gaps in federal cyber readiness. The arrival of real CMMC enforcement on Nov. 10 transformed cyber compliance from a suggested best practice into a binding requirement with real stakes. Nation state campaigns escalated. Cloud outages disrupted daily life. The threat landscape matured faster than most organizations were ready for.
This is not a simple recap. It is a warning. The private sector is now carrying more of the responsibility for national cyber defense than ever before, and the expectations from Washington have changed. The year 2026 will require a higher standard of preparedness, accountability and execution from every organization that touches federal data or critical infrastructure.
Nation State Cyber Aggression Reached A New Stage
This year marked a major shift in cyber geopolitics. The China Ministry of State Security lead Salt Typhoon campaign forced the United States and its allies to publicly declare a foreign cyber operation a national defense crisis. Public attribution came faster, coordination among allies was tighter and the message to adversaries was clearer. They are no longer dealing with a fragmented response.
At the same time, attacks on a Midwestern city’s power grid and disruptions in airline and logistics systems showed that hostile intelligence services are now willing to target civilian infrastructure directly. These operations are designed to erode confidence, test red lines and create leverage in broader geopolitical confrontations.
Infrastructure Fragility Became Impossible To Ignore
If 2024 was the year of AI hype, 2025 was the year that exposed how brittle critical infrastructure really is.
The Alaska Airlines grounding revealed just how dependent aviation is on complex digital systems that were never designed for this level of interconnected stress. Soon after, cascading outages at AWS and Azure triggered service disruptions across banking, healthcare, retail and government. Whole industries discovered that their operational resiliency begins and ends with a small number of hyperscale providers.
These outages were not minor inconveniences. They affected public safety and economic stability. They made one thing obvious. The world consolidated too much dependency into too few platforms without building enough resiliency around them.
The Longest Government Shutdown And The Cyber Blind Spot It Created
On Oct. 1, 2025, the federal government shut down after lawmakers failed to reach a funding deal. The shutdown lasted 43 days and became the longest in United States history.
Most coverage focused on airports, federal paychecks and political theater. The real danger was quieter and more serious. Cybersecurity operations inside the government were stretched to a breaking point.
At the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency and other cyber focused agencies, furloughs, hiring freezes and reassignments created gaps in monitoring, threat hunting and coordination. Experts warned that lapses in patching, logging and information sharing during the shutdown could open windows of opportunity that adversaries would exploit long after funding was restored.
To make matters worse, the lapse of CISA’s core information sharing protections during this same period raised legal uncertainty for companies that wanted to share incident data with the federal government. Several legal analyses pointed out that after Oct. 1, private organizations could no longer rely on the same statutory liability protections if they voluntarily shared cyber threat information, which increased their perceived legal risk.
The result was a perfect storm. The longest shutdown on record, weakened federal cyber capacity and more hesitation from private companies about sharing the very data that helps defend the nation.
AI Strengthened Defenders But Supercharged Attackers
Artificial intelligence shaped the threat landscape in profound ways. On the defensive side, AI helped security operations centers cut through noise, reduce false positives and accelerate incident response. Analysts became more efficient. Playbooks became smarter.
Attackers adapted faster. AI assisted phishing, automated reconnaissance and vulnerability scanning pushed attack volume to historic levels. The silent breach that exposed billions of passwords was a reminder that adversaries are now using automation and data at industrial scale.
Meanwhile, corporate AI deployments often outpaced governance. Many organizations deployed new AI tools in the cloud without basic controls, audits or architecture reviews. AI did not replace cybersecurity fundamentals. It amplified the consequences of neglect.
Washington Reached A Regulatory Tipping Point
Voluntary cybersecurity officially ran out of road in 2025. The Department of Defense finalized its long awaited acquisition rule on Sept. 10, 2025. On Nov. 10, 2025, that rule took effect. From that date forward, contracting officers gained explicit authority to insert CMMC language into new solicitations and awards, making cybersecurity a real condition of winning and keeping defense work.
This was not a theoretical milestone. It was the real CMMC start date, with a phased rollout through 2028 that begins with self assessments, then escalates to third party certifications for higher risk programs.
For the Defense Industrial Base, Nov. 10 became the line of demarcation. Before that date, many contractors could claim they were “working on” NIST 800 171 and CMMC. After that date, failure to meet requirements began to carry consequences that include losing contracts and facing enforcement under the False Claims Act for false attestations.
The message from Washington is clear. Cyber compliance is now table stakes for doing business with the federal government. It is no longer a marketing slogan or a checkbox exercise.
CISA, DOJ And The Shift Of Cyber Burden To The Private Sector
While CMMC grabbed headlines inside the defense world, two quieter developments reshaped the broader cyber landscape.
First, the federal government continued to elevate CISA as the central civilian hub for cyber threat coordination and information sharing. Earlier executive actions expanded CISA’s role in coordinating federal response to cyber incidents and promoted common standards for logging, encryption and secure software development.
Second, the Department of Justice significantly increased its role in cybersecurity. On April 8, 2025, DOJ’s rule on access to sensitive United States personal data and government related data went into effect. It imposed new expectations on companies that handle data that could be exploited by foreign adversaries and signaled a more aggressive stance on cross border data risk.
At the same time, DOJ ramped up enforcement around cybersecurity representations, particularly for federal contractors. False statements about NIST 800 171 and CMMC compliance are now a clear target for False Claims Act actions and settlements, which raises the cost of treating cyber obligations as “aspirational” instead of real.
Put together, these moves tell a consistent story. The federal government is centralizing strategy and standards, but it is pushing day to day defense onto the private sector. Companies that sit in critical supply chains are expected to carry their weight, invest in security and be truthful about their posture. Compliance and standards are the language of that new compact.
The Workforce Shortage Became A Strategic Risk
For years the industry talked about a cybersecurity talent shortage. In 2025 it moved from talking point to operational reality.
Organizations struggled to fill key roles in security operations, cloud security and compliance. Retention was difficult. Burnout was real. At the same time, too many hiring managers clung to rigid checklists and unnecessary barriers that kept out capable candidates, including veterans and mid career switchers who bring real discipline and mission focus.
Several major incidents this year shared a common root cause. There were not enough people available to do the basic blocking and tackling of cybersecurity. Patching lagged. Logs were not reviewed. Alerts piled up.
Supply Chain Attacks Hit With Greater Impact
This year also underscored that no company is an island.
The attack on a key Whole Foods supplier and several other third party incidents proved that even highly mature enterprises are exposed if their vendors and partners do not meet the same security standards. Once attackers compromise a supplier, they often inherit trust relationships, credentials and network access that bypass traditional defenses.
For CEOs and boards, supply chain security is now one of the most material risks on the table. In 2026 the winners will be the organizations that treat vendor security as seriously as their own.
The Compliance Illusion Finally Cracked
Perhaps the most dangerous trend of 2025 was false confidence.
Across industries, organizations celebrated passing audits, earning certifications and filing self assessments. Then they suffered breaches that exploited basic misconfigurations, weak multifactor authentication and abandoned servers that no one was watching.
Frameworks like NIST 800 171, CMMC, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 work when they are implemented honestly and maintained continuously. They fail when they become paperwork exercises that are revisited once a year.
The combination of the longest shutdown in history, the Nov. 10 CMMC enforcement date and a more aggressive DOJ should end that illusion. Compliance is now tied directly to revenue, contracts, liability and in some cases national security.
What Comes Next
Cybersecurity evolved permanently this year. The new reality is defined by the following:
- Nation state aggression that targets everyday infrastructure
- Massive dependency on hyperscale cloud providers that are not fail proof
- AI that accelerates both attack and defense
- Real regulatory enforcement that began with CMMC on Nov. 10, 2025, with other departments and allied nations expected to follow suit quickly
- Federal agencies like CISA and DOJ setting standards and enforcement while pushing day to day responsibility onto the private sector
- Workforce shortages and supply chain weaknesses that attackers already understand better than most boards
This will be the baseline for 2026, not a temporary spike.
For the United States, cybersecurity is now inseparable from national defense, economic resilience and public safety. For the private sector, especially anyone touching federal data or critical infrastructure, the expectations are clear. Build to standards, prove compliance and treat security as a core part of the business, not a side project.
Attackers are counting on fatigue, distraction and wishful thinking. The only real answer is discipline, transparency and relentless execution.
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