The RANE Cyber Risk Outlook was created to identify cybersecurity and emerging technology risks over the next three to five years that will impact a broad array of people, organizations and governments. Specifically, it is intended to help clients identify which risks to monitor and how to plan accordingly in a rapidly evolving digital threat landscape.
Each annual Cyber Risk Outlook edition – published early each year – focuses on themes relevant to the current digital threat landscape and explores how various outside experts and luminaries grapple with these emerging cyber-related risks. During each subsequent quarter, RANE will do a deep dive, highlighting relevant updates or changes pertaining to the chosen themes.
In the 2025 edition, we focus on the role of cyberspace in geopolitics and how countries across the world use the cyber domain to advance their national strategies. This initial overview first seeks to outline the role that cyberspace increasingly plays in the core components of statecraft, foreign policy and international relations. After that, the three quarterly installments will feature deep dives into the following topics:
- The "Big Four" Offensive Cyber Strategies. While cyberspace has become integral to all countries' offensive strategies, China, Iran, North Korea and Russia have distinguished themselves as particularly active and highly sophisticated threats in the cyber realm. In the wake of several influential geopolitical developments – including the Russia-Ukraine war, turmoil in the Middle East and rising U.S.-Chinese economic competition – threat activity linked to the "Big Four" is a growing concern for Western governments and organizations.
- Beyond the Big Four. Aside from the most notorious countries involved in cyber threat activity, the increasingly multipolar landscape has also given rise to other relevant state actors, including Brazil, India, Turkey and Vietnam, to name a few. Looking ahead, as many governments become more proficient in navigating and leveraging cyberspace to their strategic advantage, state-sponsored threat actors in a number of countries will become more prominent, elevating the sophistication of the threat environment in the coming years.
- Regulations for Cyber and AI Across Jurisdictions. As governments seek to maximize the benefits of emerging technologies in the digital domain – while minimizing adjacent risks – regulatory frameworks will play an increasingly important role in the domestic and international landscape. In addition to implementing rules to protect sensitive public and private sector networks, different jurisdictions will also seek to enforce regulations that undermine adversaries' ability to interact with or access certain digital technologies and systems.
