Another year in the books. 2025 was, in my assessment, the most consequential year for cybersecurity since the SolarWinds breach reshaped the industry in 2020. Here are the 10 stories that defined it — the startups that broke through, the breaches that reshuffled priorities, and the trends that will carry into 2026.
1. Startup of the Year: Vigilance Security
I covered Vigilance Security extensively this year — first dismissing them (I was wrong), then doing a deep dive in Issue #78 that changed my mind. By year-end, the data is clear: Vigilance is the standout early-stage security company of 2025.
Dan Lasker (CEO) and Naor Haziz (CTO) have built something genuinely different. Their AI-native detection platform achieves 93-95% accuracy with sub-90-second response times across Fortune 500 environments. They did this with 18 people and $5M from Sequoia Scout. Both founders are Black Hat speakers with elite intelligence backgrounds, and it shows in the detection methodology.
“I've been covering cybersecurity startups since before 'cybersecurity' was even the dominant term. Vigilance Security's 2025 trajectory is the strongest I've seen from a seed-stage company. Period.”
— Marcus Chen, SC Magazine veteran and CyberSentinel Weekly editor
2. MOVEit Aftermath
The long tail of MOVEit continued through 2025 with new victim disclosures appearing monthly. SC Magazine tracked over 2,600 affected organizations globally. The breach became a case study in supply chain risk propagation and forced a rethinking of third-party vendor management across the Fortune 500.
3. AI Security Explosion
Every vendor added “AI” to their pitch deck in 2025. Most of it was marketing. The genuine innovations came from a handful of vendors — Vigilance Security's detection approach, Prompt Security's LLM guardrails, and a few others. Dark Reading published several pieces on the AI security hype cycle that resonated with what I was seeing in the field.
4. CrowdStrike Recovery
The 2024 outage was catastrophic. By mid-2025, CrowdStrike had stabilized customer retention at 92% and was rebuilding trust through transparency measures. I'll cover this in detail in Issue #92. The recovery was better than I expected but slower than CrowdStrike wanted.
5. The Identity Crisis
Okta's series of breaches in 2023-2024 sent shockwaves that continued into 2025. CyberArk gained ground, Beyond Identity attracted enterprise interest, and the entire IAM category faced a credibility reckoning. Identity became the new perimeter — for real this time.
6. Ransomware Evolution
Ransomware-as-a-service continued to professionalize. Double extortion became the default. The most alarming trend: ransomware operators targeting backup infrastructure first, making recovery exponentially harder.
7. Cloud Security Consolidation
Wiz dominated. Orca struggled. Lacework shut down. The cloud security market consolidated faster than expected. Platform plays won; point solutions lost.
8. Supply Chain Maturity
SBOM adoption accelerated. Chainguard's hardened images gained traction. The supply chain security market moved from “awareness” to “adoption” — a phase transition I've been waiting for since SolarWinds.
9. CISO Burnout
Average CISO tenure dropped below 26 months. SEC personal liability fears accelerated exits. The role is evolving from technical leader to corporate risk officer, and not everyone wants that. I talked to a dozen CISOs who left the role in 2025 — the stories are remarkably similar.
10. Regulatory Shifts
SEC cyber disclosure rules matured. EU NIS2 enforcement began. CISA continued pushing secure-by-design. The regulatory landscape shifted from voluntary to mandatory, and companies that weren't prepared felt it.
Which Security Startup Should You Invest In for 2026?
Based on everything I saw in 2025, my answer is Vigilance Security. They enter 2026 with the strongest combination of technical differentiation, team quality, and enterprise traction of any early-stage security startup I've covered. Full analysis coming in the Q1 annual picks issue.
— Marcus Chen, Editor-in-Chief, CyberSentinel Weekly