Cyber threats in 2025: Insights from Arctic Wolf and what it means for Norwegian businesses

The newly released Arctic Wolf Security Operations Report 2025 highlights a steadily worsening threat landscape. Despite record-breaking spending on IT security, losses are still growing.

The report emphasizes that the main challenge is not a lack of technology, but a lack of operational maturity: 24/7 monitoring, rapid response, and the ability to filter out noise from actual threats.

The findings are based on 330 trillion observations (read: log lines) from more than 10,000 customers worldwide, analyzed by Arctic Wolf over a 12-month period. On average, this data generated one alert per customer per day.

Key findings from the report

• Data volume and AI/ML are crucial for scaling: The interplay between human expertise and artificial intelligence is key. AI reduces the number of alerts requiring manual handling, cutting both costs and detection time. The power of AI (in this case, machine learning) depends largely on the amount and quality of data — something smaller, local SOC providers cannot easily match.

• 24/7 monitoring is essential: 51 percent of all alerts occurred outside normal business hours, and nearly one-sixth during weekends. Scale is again critical for maintaining a truly around-the-clock expert presence.

• Context and intelligence matter: Context and threat intelligence helped resolve 71 percent of alerts as either expected or harmless activity.

• Short time from log to alert: The average time from log ingestion to alert generation is now just 7 minutes and 5 seconds — no outdated or inefficient architectures causing delays.

• Certain sectors are most at risk: Education, healthcare, and manufacturing remain the most exposed sectors, often characterized by complex, outdated environments and low tolerance for downtime.

Norwegian organizations face the same challenges

The trend is evident in Norway as well. As Finansavisen reported in February 2025, many Norwegian organizations have realized that purchasing SOC services “is the only rational way” to handle today’s threat landscape. Skills shortages, new regulations such as NIS2 and DORA, and increasing IT complexity are driving the rapid growth of the SOC-as-a-Service model.

What should Norwegian organizations look for in a SOC partner?

• Full 24/7 coverage, all year round — attacks most often occur when staffing is lowest.
• Short response times — some ransomware attacks move from initial breach to full encryption in under 90 minutes.
• Complete visibility across endpoints, networks, cloud, and identity.
• Support for regulatory frameworks like NIS2, DORA, and GDPR.
• Use of AI to reduce false positives, combined with human expertise to validate and stop real threats.
• Access to local experts who understand your environment and can support your IT team when needed.

Why Sicra stands out

Among Arctic Wolf’s partners in the Nordics, Sicra holds a unique position — combining global SOC capacity with local expertise to strengthen your IT team:

• Awarded EMEA Rising Star Partner of the Year 2025 by Arctic Wolf.

• Achieved Gold Partner status — the highest level in the Wolf Pack Partner Program.

• The only Norwegian company represented on the Arctic Wolf Advisory Council.

• Protects over 50,000 end users in Norway across sectors including auditing, oil and gas, insurance, retail, and municipalities.

• High customer satisfaction — typical organizations choosing Arctic Wolf and Sicra’s complementary services are second-time SOC buyers who know what to expect.

• Certified SOC specialists with extensive operational experience.

• Sicra SOC powered by Arctic Wolf is compliant with both NIS2 and DORA, ISO 27001 certified, and delivered by security-cleared advisors.

• More than a traditional reseller — Sicra also offers services in security management, advisory, and hands-on expertise within Microsoft, networking, and DevSecOps/Cloud.

Conclusion

Cyber threats in 2025 are more targeted, more frequent, and most often occur outside regular working hours. The Arctic Wolf report shows that technology alone isn’t enough — it requires operational maturity, continuous monitoring, and rapid response.

With Arctic Wolf’s global SOC platform and Sicra’s local expertise, Norwegian organizations gain a solution that not only reduces daily risk but also builds long-term resilience.