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The popular annual report examines the year's crisis news and identifies emerging trends demanding the attention of business leaders.

SOUTH BEND, Ind., July 7, 2026 /PRNewswire-91ÉçÇø/ -- In its just-released annual report, the Institute for Crisis Management® (ICM) tallied 1,232,103 crisis news items in 2025, a decrease of about eight percent from 2024. As expected, the crisis news statistics for 2025 revealed some consistent and some surprising results.

The 2025 ICM Annual Crisis Report is a compilation of news, trends and highlights of business crises, offering business leaders valuable insights into the impact crises can have on the organization and its stakeholders. According to the report, news items about Cybercrime dwarfed every other category at 25.44% of news items tracked.

Mismanagement, a perennial category leader, ranked second at 19.03%, followed by Sexual Harassment at 15.26%, Discrimination at 8.59% and Labor Disputes at 7.46%.

The highest ranked categories represent smoldering crises and accounted for a predictable 65% of all news items tracked. A business problem or issue ignored or left unresolved by management often explodes into what ICM calls a smoldering crisis, one that is both predictable and preventable.

"When looking at trends over the past six years, many categories seem to have settled into pre-pandemic levels, " noted Deborah Hileman, ICM's CEO. " However, some categories prove unpredictable. The cybercrime category increased exponentially from about 13% in 2024 to a staggering 25% of this year's total. Surprisingly, the sexual harassment category rose even more dramatically to 15.26% from 2.08% in 2024, in large part due to more commonplace use of the #metoo tag."

Hileman urges boards and executives to invest immediately in comprehensive crisis management and communication planning and training to prepare, prevent and mitigate the kinds of crises that can adversely impact an organization's reputation, brand, business and financial performance. " The investment in preparedness is pennies compared to the cost of failure to manage crisis effectively," she said.

About the ICM Annual Crisis Report

ICM was founded with the principle that research is a vital foundation to effective crisis management and communication. The firm has produced this annual report since its founding in 1990. The report is a popular tool with professionals ranging from executives to academics, and has been cited in numerous reports, articles and white papers over the years.

Download the free report at , and register for an upcoming online Crisis Communication Management Course. ICM is offering its popular flagship online crisis communication certification course in July and October.

About ICM

Founded in 1990, the Institute for Crisis Management was one of the U.S. first consulting firms to specialize in crisis management and communications. Boutique by design, ICM operates in a virtual business model that make its services accessible and affordable for organizations of all sizes. ICM's planning, training and consulting services help leaders and organizations across industries to effectively manage all phases of a crisis, from assessing vulnerabilities and preparing for them, to containing a crisis and mitigating damage, protecting reputation, learning from the event and seizing opportunities that arise from the crisis.

Media Contact

Deborah Hileman, Institute for Crisis Management, 1 502.587.0327, [email protected],

SOURCE Institute for Crisis Management