- Rethink human involvement in cybersecurity—it’s not about blame, but about designing systems that support human strengths and mitigate limitations.
- Explore how secure email gateways (SEGs) like Trustwave MailMarshal use AI-powered threat detection to outpace phishing tactics and reduce human error.
- Understand the psychological triggers behind phishing attacks and why relying solely on user awareness is no longer a viable defense strategy.
The phrase “humans are the weakest link in the security chain” is an oversimplification and lazy thinking. Why? Let’s break it down.
Have you ever seen an advertisement for a product that promises to make life easier and thought, “I need that?”
Choosing the simplest path to a desired outcome is not just human nature; it’s a principle of the entire animal kingdom. From an evolutionary standpoint, conserving energy for the greatest reward has always been advantageous.
However, in cybersecurity, this instinct can be a liability.
In an ideal world, security controls would operate seamlessly in the background, protecting assets without disrupting workflows.
To be fair, many do—firewalls, endpoint detection and response (EDR), and data loss prevention (DLP) tools function autonomously from a user’s perspective. Yet, when security requires user input, vulnerabilities emerge.
To demonstrate this point, let’s examine two long-standing security challenges that persist without clear-cut solutions:
Weak Passwords
Passwords are a fundamental security mechanism with a critical flaw: strong passwords require length, complexity, and uniqueness—three factors humans struggle with.
Despite advancements such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), and password managers, people often prioritize convenience over security. Case in point: How often do you click “remember my device” to bypass MFA when you next login? By doing so, you’ve weakened access security and potentially made it easier for an attacker to exploit.
While password alternatives like biometrics, passkeys, and blockchain-based identity management are gaining traction, they’re not yet ubiquitous. In the meantime, as a minimum, organizations must strengthen security by:
- Minimizing access to only what’s necessary. This fundamental principle is often overlooked due to evolving business needs and speed of deployment requirements, where security has not been consulted due to inadequate governance and management processes.
- Requiring MFA without caching for external access and sensitive data. While some may find it inconvenient, the actual impact on productivity is likely minimal. Plus, with MFA implementation easy and potentially zero-cost, there’s next-to-no business impact either.
- Enforcing proper use of password managers. Many employees store self-created passwords in a password manager but fail to use them to generate stronger ones, possibly due to the fear of handing over full control of the process.
- Reevaluating password policies. Instead of forcing complex passwords that users struggle to remember, focus more on managing failed login attempts and lockout procedures, making it more difficult for the attacker than the user.
Security awareness training can help, but poorly designed programs can create stress and foster a fear of failure. Training should be engaging and practical, not punitive.
Phishing Attacks
Weak passwords are often a component of phishing attacks, which also exploit human tendencies—specifically, our difficulty in assessing multiple cues at the same time. While the human brain is wired to identify familiar patterns, a skill essential for survival, phishing emails often evade detection. Why?
Attackers manipulate psychological triggers, creating urgency, mimicking authority figures, or leveraging real-world events like holiday sales, natural disasters, and even the likelihood of corporate policy updates: all subjects we expect to receive communications on.
The cues are incredibly difficult to recognize because, to one person, an email or attachment will be out of the norm, but to another, it’s expected, and this person will take the bait and click.
Given the sheer variety of phishing techniques, relying solely on human vigilance is unrealistic. Attackers continuously refine their tactics, and distinguishing between legitimate and malicious messages is becoming increasingly difficult.
Businesses should implement robust technical controls instead of expecting employees to shoulder the burden.
Secure email gateways (SEGs) like Trustwave MailMarshal have many advantages over a human-centric approach. By identifying and blocking a single malicious email, it can prevent duplicates from reaching users. SEGs also employ behavioral analysis, URL scanning, and attachment blocking, all features designed to intercept threats before they reach users. The most advanced SEGs use AI/ML-driven threat detection; machines surpass humans in identifying phishing patterns and can analyze a broader range of threats in real time without being susceptible to the very human characteristics of time pressure, lethargy, and unconscious bias.
The Bigger Picture
Human involvement in security is unavoidable, but recognizing human limitations is key to strengthening defenses, more so than ever, as the use of AI in attacks increases. We’re not the weakest link because we’re human—our learning processes, shaped by the slow speed of evolution and culture, simply cannot keep pace with today’s rapidly shifting threat landscape.
With Microsoft reporting 3.4 billion phishing emails sent daily and the number created using AI now close to 5%, it no longer makes sense to have humans identify a phishing attempt when it lands in their inbox.
Recognizing this fact and making suitable allowances improves our ability to defend against attack in many ways.
However, while we humans may not be the best security controls, we can design security frameworks and controls that leverage automation, minimize user burden, and ensure that our defenses evolve as fast as the threats we face.
