Shawnee Delaney, Founder and CEO of Vaillance Group reveals how organizations must educate their employees to enhance cybersecurity.

The human factor

Cybersecurity keeps evolving, but one thing hasn’t changed – humans are still the weakest link.

Over the next 12 months, expect attackers to double down on exploiting people, not systems. Why? Because it works.

Phishing attacks are more convincing. Deepfakes make voice and video untrustworthy. And insiders – whether malicious or just careless – remain one of the hardest risks to control.

Here’s the hard truth: technology alone can’t save us. Businesses that focus solely on tools while ignoring human behavior are setting themselves up for cybersecurity failure.

The real winners will be the ones that invest in human risk management – not as a box to check but as the foundation of their security programs.

What’s coming in 2025?

1. AI-powered social engineering 2.0: Phishing attacks are becoming more personal and more believable, thanks to AI tools that generate real-time lures. Deepfake voice and video scams will hit both families and businesses hard
2. Insider threats remain a top concern: Employees – whether malicious, negligent or manipulated – continue to be a prime vulnerability. Attackers know it’s often easier to trick someone inside than to break in from the outside
3. Training gaps fuel data breaches: As attacks grow more sophisticated, outdated training programs will leave employees defenseless against phishing, impersonation scams and data theft

Steps to protect your organization

The key to security in 2025 is addressing the human factor – before attackers do. Here’s what businesses should be doing now:

Treat employees like allies, not liabilities: Most security programs talk about employees like they’re the enemy – potential risks waiting to happen.

That mindset has to go. Instead, engage them early in security discussions and let them be part of the solution. Trust breeds accountability – and accountability reduces risk.

Make security personal: People don’t care about data breaches until it’s their data on the Dark Web.

Businesses need to make security feel personal to get buy-in. To do this, train employees how to protect themselves and their families at home, not just at work.

Teach them how to spot deepfakes, protect their kids’ identities and secure their own devices. When security habits feel personal, they become second nature.

Focus on early detection over after-the-fact cleanup: Most companies spend too much time cleaning up breaches instead of stopping them early. Insider threats, in particular, often leave clues before they strike – if you’re paying attention.

There is lots you can do here to mitigate this threat.

Deploy continuous monitoring tools that flag unusual behavior before it turns into an incident and pair that with anonymous reporting channels so employees can report concerns without fear.

Improve your employee lifecycle management process, especially focusing on onboarding and termination.

The bottom line

The next 12 months will test businesses in ways we haven’t seen before. AI-driven attacks, insider threats and deepfake scams aren’t science fiction – they’re here now.

However, the companies that succeed won’t just rely on firewalls and filters.

They’ll double down on human risk management – teaching employees to spot threats, respond quickly and adapt faster than attackers can.

At the end of the day, cybersecurity isn’t about computers – it’s about people. And people can either be your biggest risk… or your strongest defense.

Which one will they be in your organization?

Shawnee Delaney

Shawnee is the CEO of Vaillance Group. She spent nearly a decade with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a decorated Clandestine Services Officer conducting Human Intelligence (HUMINT) operations all over the world.

She supported the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the protection of US critical infrastructure and is a globally recognized expert in Insider Threat and Human Risk Management.

She holds an MA in International Policy Studies with a Specialization in Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Proliferation, an MS in Cybersecurity and is currently in the process of getting her third Masters in Industrial-Organizational Psychology.

This article was originally published in the special February Influencers Edition of Security Journal Americas. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.