The 2-Z of 2025 predictions: H & I

H is for (going) holistic

"Businesses are advancing digital transformation powered by technologies like digital twins, industrial AI, and the industrial metaverse. Investments in such technologies are expected to grow significantly among SEA manufacturers, reaching US$301.6 B by 2028 according to ABI Research. As we enter a new year, the pace of digital transformation continues to accelerate. However, many businesses have responded in a disorganised manner, often adopting tools in a fragmented and uncoordinated way," said Alex Teo, VP & MD of Southeast Asia, Siemens Digital Industries Software.

"If this trend continues unchecked, it could undermine their agility, resilience, and ability to innovate. To maximise investments and drive organisational change, a holistic approach to digital transformation is crucial in the new year to ensure strategic alignment, process optimisation, and user empowerment. 

"More than just identifying tools, organisations must redefine or optimise related processes and employees through education and feedback mechanisms. By approaching digital transformation strategically and intentionally, companies can foster cross-domain collaboration and achieve sustainable and impactful digitalisation, avoiding pitfalls associated with rushed implementations."

Concept artwork depicting identity
security generated by Dream by WOMBO.

I is for identity security

In 2025, attackers will increasingly target obscure identity paths, such as convoluted trust relationships and hidden entitlements, that can grant privileged access, predicted BeyondTrust experts in a list of 2025 predictions. "These minor identity issues will evolve into significant security risks, forcing organisations to reassess their identity and access hygiene to avoid lateral movement and privilege escalation attacks," the experts said.

BeyondTrust also believes a rise in reverse identity theft is imminent. This occurs when stolen breach data is improperly merged with additional personal information to create false digital identities, BeyondTrust experts explained: "This trend will complicate identity security as organisations struggle to differentiate between legitimate and fraudulent personas."

"The rapid adoption of cloud-native technologies and AI means there are more identities to manage at greater speed and with more complexity. Attackers are increasingly zeroing in on machine identities, particularly in cloud-native and development environments.

"As digital certificate lifespans shrink (From 398 days to 90 days for Google and 398 days to 45 days for Apple by 2027), organisations that rely on manual certificate lifecycle management processes could face a higher risk of outages and security risks if they do not create dedicated machine identity security programs," warned Jeffrey Kok, VP of Solution Engineers for Asia Pacific and Japan at CyberArk.

"Machine identities can support organisations through automated certificate lifecycle management to ensure seamless continuity and compliance."

Kok further said that cloud-native and developer environments will become even bigger targets due to the surge in machine identities – such as cloud access tokens, API keys and service accounts. Machine identities now outnumber human identities by 45 to one, and this gap is expected to widen, set to reach 100 to one soon," shared Kok.

"Successfully targeting machine identities gives attackers a clear pathway to admin-level control, enabling everything from data theft to taking over – or shutting down – critical business services."

Elia Zaitsev, CTO, CrowdStrike, also thinks that identity-based attacks will continue to rise, observing that 75% of attacks to gain initial access are now malware-free. "As adversaries become more skilled at exploiting stolen credentials, they will increasingly target interconnected domains within a victim’s architecture—identity, cloud, endpoint, data and AI models. These attacks leave minimal footprints in each domain, appearing as isolated events, much like separate pieces of a puzzle—making them difficult to detect," Zaitsev warned.

"In 2025, security leaders must integrate unified visibility across the entire kill chain, enabling cross-domain threat hunting to detect deviations from normal user behaviour and catch anomalies before they escalate into breaches. While a strong focus on identity protection will be key to early detection, organisations cannot rely on automation alone to safeguard all areas of enterprise risk. 

"Solving the cross-domain puzzle requires a combination of advanced technology, irreplaceable human expertise, and cutting-edge telemetry to inform proactive decision-making." 

Malware as a primary threat vector will decline as attackers increasingly exploit identity and access vulnerabilities in the long run, BeyondTrust experts said. "Organisations must shift their focus to protecting identities and reducing the blast radius of compromised accounts," the experts recommended.

"The world of identity-based attacks is a dynamic one, an ongoing struggle that’s spurring constant innovation and adaptation on both sides. For organisations looking to protect their users and data, it’ll take an evolution in technologies, policies, and business processes to put up an effective defense. Start today," suggested Brett Winterford, Regional Chief Security Officer, Asia Pacific & Japan, Okta. 

I is also for (AI-generated) imagery

"While current AI business applications primarily focus on text-based output, 2025 will see a dramatic shift toward rich, visual AI experiences. Instead of receiving text-based instructions or reports, users will interact with AI through dynamic visual content, including real-time video generations, interactive demonstrations and visual problem-solving guides. This evolution will fundamentally change how information is communicated and consumed in business settings," said Mei Dent, Chief Product & Technology Officer, TeamViewer.

"We’re already seeing early indicators of this shift, with AI art gaining prominence and selling for more than a million dollars, for example. However, the real transformation will come as these capabilities are applied to business contexts, such as AI generating 30-second tutorial videos for technical support or creating visual simulations for training."

Dent advised organisations to prepare for the visual AI revolution by identifying areas where visual communication could enhance current text-based processes. "Companies should invest in tools and platforms that support visual AI generation while developing guidelines for effective visual content creation," she said. 

Source: NVIDIA. Catanzaro.

Bryan Catanzaro, VP of Applied Deep Learning Research, NVIDIA, said AI will be associated with more realistic images and audio in 2025. "AI will become more familiar to use, emotionally responsive and marked by greater creativity and diversity. The first generative AI models that drew pictures struggled with simple tasks like drawing teeth. Rapid advances in AI are making image and video outputs much more photorealistic, while AI-generated voices are losing that robotic feel," Catanzaro said.

"These advancements will be driven by the refinement of algorithms and datasets and enterprises’ acknowledgment that AI needs a face and a voice to matter to 8 billion people. This will also cause a shift from turn-based AI interactions to more fluid and natural conversations. Interactions with AI will no longer feel like a series of exchanges but instead offer a more engaging and humanlike conversational experience."

"Fidelity and realism (are) coming to generative AI across the graphics and simulation pipeline, leading to hyperrealistic games, AI-generated movies and digital humans," agreed Sanja Fidler, VP of AI Research, NVIDIA.

"Unlike with traditional graphics, the vast majority of images will come from generated pixels instead of renderings, resulting in more natural motions and appearances. Tools that develop and iterate on contextual behaviours will result in more sophisticated games for a fraction of the cost of today’s AAA titles." 

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Read the full set of 2025 predictions from 2-Z at https://www.techtradeasia.com/2025/01/the-techtrade-asia-2024-roundup-2025.html

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