The 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) reveals a 34% increase in attackers exploiting vulnerabilities to gain initial access and cause security breaches compared to the previous year. Vulnerability exploitation has overtaken phishing as the leading initial access vector and is approaching credential abuse in frequency. Web applications, rather than edge devices, are the most targeted for exploitation. In the first quarter of 2025, 159 Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) were exploited in the wild, with 28.3% of these exploited within 24 hours of disclosure. Critical vulnerabilities include CVE-2025-34028, a remote code execution (RCE) flaw in Commvault Command Center versions 11.38.0 to 11.38.19, rated with a CVSS score of 9.0 to 10, which allows attackers to execute code without authentication via a pre-auth Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) attack. Additionally, research from Google Cloud's Mandiant indicates that over half of active cyber threat groups are now financially motivated, with ransomware gangs accelerating their operations. Cybercriminals and state-sponsored groups have intensified ransomware attacks, increasing victim counts and evading defenses more rapidly. The most exploited targets in Q1 2025 include content management systems (CMSes), edge devices, and Windows platforms. Security experts emphasize the importance of building and purchasing software that is secure by design to mitigate these escalating threats.