A recent study found that automotive cyber risks are evolving to impact entire organizations rather than individual systems. 

The VicOne Automotive Cybersecurity Report indicates that in 2025 cross-region, multibusiness incidents more than tripled year-over-year to account for 161 out of the 610 recorded cyber incident cases. 

Cyber attackers still target enterprise IT systems but are now extending their attacks to user-facing integration layers. Now, 33% of observed cyber risks directly impact driver-facing systems, like infotainment and network connections. 

The findings point to a necessary shift in cyber-risk governance, according to the automotive cybersecurity company. 

“In the Overlap Era, vehicles, cloud platforms, and enterprise IT systems function as a single operational fabric,” said VicOne CEO Max Cheng. “Governing these environments as isolated silos is no longer sustainable. Cybersecurity has become a board-level accountability issue.”

VicOne defines the Overlap Era as a period when traditional vehicle platforms remain in service globally at the same time that software-defined vehicles, cloud connected ecosystems and artificial intelligence-enabled features are being rapidly deployed. The new era of cyber risk directly affects operations continuity, brand trust and executive accountability, according to the report. 

“Organizations need the ability to continuously recalculate risk by integrating threat intelligence, operational telemetry, and exposure data," VicOne said. "This creates a shared, up-to-date view of risk that supports informed prioritization as conditions change.” 

Looking ahead, VicOne predicts that ransomware could cause fleet-level “operational paralysis” and that a single over-the-air breach could affect an entire fleet and cause mass recalls if not handled swiftly and efficiently.