Threat Intelligence Is Now the Center of Cyber Defense

Six months into 2025, Threat Intelligence has shifted from a cybersecurity add-on to the beating heart of effective, real-time defense.

The industry has crossed a threshold. The volume, velocity, and sophistication of cyberattacks—fueled by generative AI, political conflict, and automated botnets—have pushed traditional, siloed security architectures past their breaking point. Today, organizations leveraging integrated Threat Intelligence are significantly ahead in maintaining resilience and protecting their digital assets.

Radware’s recent analysis, paired with global threat data, shows that the second half of 2025 will demand a new baseline: interconnected defenses guided by live, contextual insights.

The Threat Landscape, Mid-2025

The first half of this year confirmed that last year’s spikes in cyberattack activity were not an anomaly—they were a warning.

• Web DDoS attacks remain elevated, following a 550%+ year-over-year surge in 2024. Certain regions experienced peaks of 2,800% above baseline due to targeted disruption campaigns during political unrest.
• Automated bot activity has continued climbing. In 2023, bots made up 47% of all internet traffic. That figure exceeded 73% by mid-2024, and remained high into 2025, with modern bots using AI models to emulate human behavior and bypass detection.
• Generative AI is being widely used by threat actors to craft custom exploits based on fresh CVEs, often within hours of disclosure. Multi-vector attacks and polymorphic malware are now common, enabling attackers to evade legacy defenses.

According to Gartner’s recent cybersecurity report, "Organizations utilizing real-time threat intelligence reduce the average detection time by 45%."

These developments mark a game-changing shift. Adversaries are now faster, more adaptive, and leveraging automation in ways that security teams—without integrated Threat Intelligence—struggle to match.

Intelligence-Driven Security: A New Operating Model

Forrester recently noted, "Integrated Threat Intelligence capabilities are no longer optional—they are essential for proactive cybersecurity."

In this context, Threat Intelligence is not just useful, it’s essential.

Real-time intelligence enables security operations teams to act preemptively, blocking attacks before they escalate. And in today’s environment, static indicators and periodic updates aren’t enough. Organizations need continuously updated feeds, contextual threat analysis, and automated rule updates that reach all layers of defense.

Radware’s Threat Research Team emphasizes that threat intelligence is crucial for organizations to gather deep insights into the specific threats they face and effectively prioritize security resources. This capability is particularly important in 2025, as it strengthens defenses against increasingly active hacktivist collectives.

That statement aligns with what we’re seeing across large enterprises and service providers: the shift toward live intelligence as a control plane—an active enabler of automated defenses, not just a reporting tool.

How Integrated Threat Intelligence Works in Practice

The most effective implementations of Threat Intelligence in 2025 focus on unifying protection across DDoS, Bot Management, and application-layer defenses. Examples include:

• Adaptive DDoS protection: Radware's cloud DDoS service uses real-time intelligence feeds to update mitigation rules dynamically, allowing fast response to new tactics such as the HTTP/2 Rapid Reset flood attack observed in 2024.
• Cross-layer attack correlation: DefensePro appliances and Radware Bot Manager share attack indicators across the network and application layers. This cooperation helps identify and block bots that morph tactics mid-session or hide behind human-like behavior patterns.
• Virtual patching via intelligence feeds: Threat Intelligence enables Radware platforms to shield unpatched applications from known exploits almost immediately after a CVE is published—far faster than traditional patch cycles.

These use cases demonstrate a shift in strategy: instead of reacting to known threats, security systems must continuously learn from—and adapt to—emerging attack patterns.

Breaking Down Silos Remains a Key Challenge

Even with growing awareness, enterprises are still stuck with fragmented security stacks. It’s common for organizations to have separate systems for Bot Mitigation, DDoS protection, and WAFs—each with its own intelligence sources, dashboards, and response mechanisms.

This fragmentation creates blind spots. One system might detect abnormal behavior, but if it doesn’t share that data, other parts of the stack stay unaware. In the time it takes to triage and respond manually, the damage may already be done.

By contrast, Radware’s architecture emphasizes real-time integration between security layers. Its solutions are designed to share indicators automatically, using AI-enhanced threat analysis to enrich detections and enable faster, more precise mitigation across platforms.

This capability is particularly relevant for large-scale, multi-vector attacks—where bots, DDoS, and app exploits hit simultaneously. Without shared intelligence, these coordinated attacks are difficult to stop.

What Security Leaders Should Evaluate Now

As we move into the second half of 2025, CISOs and security architects should reevaluate the following:

• Are threat indicators being shared across all tools and environments—cloud, data center, edge?
• How quickly can we respond to new DDoS tactics or zero-day CVEs?
• Are bots successfully bypassing current protections by mimicking user behavior?
• Does our current stack support automated rule updates from live threat feeds?

Answering “no” to any of these questions is a sign that Threat Intelligence needs to be more deeply embedded in the organization’s cybersecurity fabric.

Strategic Takeaway: Intelligence Must Drive Resilience

In 2025, organizations that treat Threat Intelligence as a feed—or a dashboard—are missing the point. It’s not just about visibility. It’s about empowering defenses to take smarter, faster action in real time.

This is the core of Radware’s approach: security solutions that learn from each other, coordinate automatically, and deliver unified protection that adjusts to attacker behavior as it changes.

It’s not just a technical edge. It’s a business advantage. Faster detection, coordinated response, and automated mitigation reduce both risk and response time. For enterprises, it’s the difference between preventing a breach and cleaning up after one.

Learn More

See how Radware's integrated security architecture enables real-time threat response across DDoS, application, and bot attack surfaces.

In the cyber threat environment of mid-2025, intelligence is no longer a feature. It’s the foundation of resilience.

Radware’s unified Threat Intelligence model breaks this cycle. By synchronizing detection, mitigation, and analytics across every layer, we turn data into action—automatically. And that’s how you move faster than the attackers.

The Mid-Year CISO Checklist

Six months into the year, here’s what every executive team should be evaluating:

• Are our defenses sharing threat indicators in real time?
• Do we have visibility into AI-generated attack variants?
• Can we adapt automatically to novel DDoS vectors?
• Are bots bypassing detection by blending into user behavior—and are we catching them?

This isn’t future-proof. This is present-tense security hygiene.

Final Thought: Threat Intelligence Is Now the Strategy

The first half of 2025 has made one truth undeniable: you can’t defend against what you can’t see—and you can’t respond to what you don’t understand.

Integrated, AI-powered Threat Intelligence delivers strategic advantages, ensuring rapid threat mitigation and business continuity. It's no longer just an advantage—it's essential.

And for those ready to evolve—Radware offers a blueprint:

Unified protection. Real-time intelligence. Threat Intelligence. Automated resilience.

Because in the cyber battles of 2025, it’s not just about having defenses. It’s about making them smarter—together.