Beyond Zero Trust: Identity-First Security Strategies That Actually Reduce Risk in 2026

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Brent Huston

A Breach That Didn’t Break In — It Logged In

The email looked routine.

A finance employee received a vendor payment request — well-written, contextually accurate, referencing an actual project. Nothing screamed “phish.” Attached was a short voice note from the CFO explaining the urgency.

The voice sounded right. The cadence, the phrasing — even the subtle impatience.

Moments later, a multi-factor authentication (MFA) prompt appeared. The employee approved it without thinking. They had approved dozens that week. Habit is powerful.

The breach didn’t bypass the firewall.
It didn’t exploit a zero-day vulnerability.
It didn’t even evade detection.

It bypassed identity confidence.

By the time the security team noticed anomalous financial transfers, the attacker had already authenticated, escalated privileges, and pivoted laterally — all using valid credentials.

In 2026, attackers aren’t breaking in.

They’re logging in.

And that reality demands a shift in how we think about security architecture. Zero Trust was a necessary evolution. But in many organizations, it’s stalled at the network layer. Meanwhile, identity has quietly become the primary control plane — and the primary attack surface.

If identity is where trust decisions happen, then identity is where risk must be engineered out.

A hacker is seated in front of a computer fingers poised over the keyboard They are ready to break into a system and gain access to sensitive information 6466041

Zero Trust Isn’t Enough Anymore

Zero Trust began as a powerful principle: “Never trust, always verify.” It challenged perimeter-centric thinking and encouraged segmentation, least privilege, and continuous validation.

But somewhere along the way, it became a marketing label.

Many implementations focus heavily on:

Network micro-segmentation
VPN replacement
Device posture checks
SASE rollouts

All valuable. None sufficient.

Because identity remains the weakest link.

AI Has Changed the Identity Battlefield

Attackers now leverage AI to:

Craft highly personalized spear phishing emails
Generate convincing deepfake audio and video impersonations
Launch MFA fatigue campaigns at scale
Automate credential stuffing with adaptive logic

The tools available to adversaries have industrialized social engineering.

Push-based MFA, once considered strong protection, is now routinely abused through prompt bombing. Deepfake impersonation erodes human intuition. Credential reuse remains rampant.

Perimeter thinking has died.
Device-centric thinking is incomplete.
Identity is now the primary control plane.

If identity is the new perimeter, it must be treated like critical infrastructure — not a checkbox configuration in your IAM console.

The Identity-First Security Framework

An identity-first strategy doesn’t abandon Zero Trust. It operationalizes it — with identity at the center of risk reduction.

Below are five pillars that move identity from access management to risk engineering.

Pillar 1: Reduce the Identity Attack Surface

A simple Pareto principle applies:

20% of identities create 80% of risk.

Privileged users. Service accounts. Automation tokens. Executive access. CI/CD credentials.

The first step isn’t detection. It’s reduction.

Actions

Inventory all identities — human and machine
Eliminate dormant accounts
Reduce standing privileges
Enforce just-in-time (JIT) access for elevated roles

Standing privilege is latent risk. Every persistent admin account is a pre-approved breach path.

Metrics That Matter

Percentage of privileged accounts
Average privilege duration
Dormant account count
Privileged access review frequency

Organizations that aggressively reduce identity sprawl see measurable decreases in lateral movement potential.

Reducing exposure is step one.
Validating behavior is step two.

Pillar 2: Continuous Identity Verification — Not Just MFA

MFA is necessary. It is no longer sufficient.

Push-based MFA fatigue attacks are common. Static authentication events assume trust after login. Attackers exploit both.

We must shift from event-based authentication to session-based validation.

Move Beyond:

Blind push approvals
Static login checks
Binary allow/deny thinking

Add:

Risk-based authentication
Device posture validation
Behavioral biometrics
Continuous session monitoring

Attackers use AI to simulate legitimacy.
Defenders must use AI to detect deviation.

Useful Metrics

MFA approval anomaly rate
Impossible travel detections
Session risk score trends
High-risk login percentage

Authentication should not be a moment. It should be a monitored process.

Pillar 3: Identity Telemetry & Behavioral Baselines

First-principles thinking:
What is compromise?

It is behavior deviation.

A legitimate user logging in from a new country at 3:00 a.m. and accessing sensitive financial systems may have valid credentials — but invalid behavior.

Implementation Steps

Build per-role behavioral baselines
Track privilege escalation attempts
Integrate IAM logs into SOC workflows
Correlate identity data with endpoint and cloud telemetry

Second-order thinking matters here.

More alerts without tuning leads to burnout.

Identity alerts must be high-confidence. Behavioral models must understand role context, not just user anomalies.

Security teams should focus on detecting intent signals — not just login events.

Pillar 4: Machine Identity Governance

Machine identities often outnumber human identities in cloud-native environments.

Consider:

Service accounts
API tokens
Certificates
CI/CD pipeline credentials
Container workload identities

AI-powered attackers increasingly target automation keys. They know that compromising a service account can provide persistent, stealthy access.

Critical Actions

Automatically rotate secrets
Shorten token lifetimes
Continuously scan repositories for hardcoded credentials
Enforce workload identity controls

Key Metrics

Average token lifespan
Hardcoded secret discovery rate
Machine identity inventory completeness
Unused service account count

Machine identities do not get tired. They also do not question unusual requests.

That makes them both powerful and dangerous.

Pillar 5: Identity Incident Response Playbooks

Identity compromise spreads faster than traditional breaches because authentication grants implicit trust.

Incident response must evolve accordingly.

Include in Playbooks:

Immediate token invalidation
Automated session termination
Privilege rollback
Identity forensics logging
Rapid behavioral reassessment

Identity Maturity Model

Level	Capability
Level 1	MFA + Basic IAM
Level 2	JIT Access + Risk-based authentication
Level 3	Behavioral detection + Machine identity governance
Level 4	Autonomous identity containment

The future state is not manual triage.

It is autonomous identity containment.

Implementation Roadmap

Transformation does not require a multi-year overhaul. It requires disciplined sequencing.

First 30 Days

Conduct a full identity inventory audit
Launch a privilege reduction sprint
Review MFA configurations and eliminate push-only dependencies
Identify dormant and orphaned accounts

Immediate wins come from subtraction.

First 90 Days

Deploy risk-based authentication policies
Integrate identity telemetry into SOC workflows
Begin machine identity governance initiatives
Establish behavioral baselines for high-risk roles

Security operations and IAM teams must collaborate here.

Six-Month Horizon

Implement behavioral AI modeling
Automate session risk scoring
Deploy automated identity containment workflows
Establish executive reporting on identity risk metrics

Identity becomes measurable. Measurable becomes manageable.

Real-World Examples

Example 1: Privilege Reduction

One enterprise reduced privileged accounts by 42%. The measurable result: significant reduction in lateral movement pathways and faster containment during simulated breach exercises.

Example 2: MFA Fatigue Prevention

A financial services firm detected abnormal MFA approval timing patterns. Session anomaly detection flagged behavior inconsistent with historical norms. The attack was stopped before funds were transferred.

The lesson: behavior, not just credentials, determines legitimacy.

Measurable Outcomes

Identity Control	Risk Reduced	Measurement Method
JIT Privilege	Lateral movement	Privilege duration logs
Risk-based MFA	Phishing success	Approval anomaly rate
Token rotation	Credential abuse	Token age metrics
Behavioral baselines	Account takeover	Session deviation scores
Machine identity inventory	Automation abuse	Service account audits

Security leaders must shift from tool counts to risk-reduction metrics.

Identity Is the New Control Plane

Attackers scale with AI.

They automate reconnaissance. They generate deepfake executives. They weaponize credentials at industrial scale.

Defenders must scale identity intelligence.

In 2026, the organizations that win will not be those with the most tools. They will be those who understand that identity is infrastructure.

Firewalls inspect traffic.
Endpoints enforce policy.
Identity determines authority.

And authority is what attackers want.

Zero Trust was the beginning. Identity-first security is the evolution.

The question is no longer whether your users are inside the perimeter.

The question is whether your identity architecture assumes breach — and contains it automatically.

Info & Help: Advancing Your Identity Strategy

Identity-first security is not a product deployment. It is an operational discipline.

If your organization is:

Struggling with privilege sprawl
Experiencing MFA fatigue attempts
Concerned about AI-driven impersonation
Lacking visibility into machine identities
Unsure how to measure identity risk

The team at MicroSolved, Inc. can help.

For over three decades, MicroSolved has assisted enterprises, financial institutions, healthcare providers, and critical infrastructure organizations in strengthening identity governance, incident response readiness, and security operations maturity.

Our services include:

Identity risk assessments
Privileged access reviews
IAM architecture design
SOC integration and telemetry tuning
Incident response planning and tabletop exercises

If identity is your new control plane, it deserves engineering rigor.

Reach out to MicroSolved to discuss how to reduce measurable identity risk — not just deploy another control.

Security is no longer about keeping attackers out.

It’s about making sure that when they log in, they don’t get far.

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

The Hidden Cost of Compliance: Why “Checkbox Security” Fails Modern Organizations

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Brent Huston

In today’s threat landscape, simply “checking the boxes” isn’t enough. Organizations invest enormous time and money to satisfy regulatory frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001, GDPR, and NIS2—but too often they stop there. The result? A false sense of cybersecurity readiness that leaves critical vulnerabilities unaddressed and attackers unchallenged.

Compliance should be a foundation—not a finish line. Let’s unpack why checkbox compliance consistently fails modern enterprises and how forward-looking security leaders can close the gap with truly risk-based strategies.

Compliance vs. Security: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Compliance and security are related—but they are emphatically not the same thing.

Compliance is about adherence to external mandates, standards, and audits.
Security is about reducing risk, defending against threats, and protecting data, systems, and business continuity.

Expecting compliance alone to prevent breaches is like believing that owning a fire extinguisher will stop every fire. The checklists in PCI DSS, HIPAA, or ISO standards are minimum controls designed to reduce loss—not exhaustive defenses against every attacker tactic.

“Compliance is not security.” — Security thought leaders have said this many times, and it rings true as organizations equate audit success with risk reduction.

Checkbox Security: Why It Fails

A compliance mindset often devolves into a checkbox mentality—complete documentation, filled-in forms, and green lights from auditors. But this approach contains several fundamental flaws:

1. Compliance Standards Lag Behind Evolving Threats

Most regulatory frameworks are reactive, built around known threats and past incidents. Cyber threats evolve constantly; sticking strictly to compliance means protecting against yesterday’s risks, not today’s or tomorrow’s.

2. Checklists Lack Contextual Risk Prioritization

Compliance is binary—yes/no answers. But not all controls have equal impact. A firewall might be present (box ticked), yet the organization might ignore the most actively exploited vulnerabilities like unpatched software or phishing risk.

3. Audit Success Doesn’t Equal Real-World Security

Auditors assess documentation and evidence of controls; they rarely test adversarial resilience. A compliant organization can still suffer devastating breaches because compliance assessments aren’t adversarial and don’t simulate real attacks.

Real-World Proof: Breaches Despite Compliance

Arguments against checkbox compliance sound theoretical—until you look at real breaches. Examples of organizations meeting compliance requirements yet being breached are widespread:

PCI DSS Compliance Breaches

Despite strict PCI requirements for safeguarding cardholder data, many breached organizations were technically compliant at the time of compromise. Researchers even note that no fully compliant organization examined was breach-free, and compliance fines or gaps didn’t prevent attackers from exploiting weak links in implementation.

Healthcare Data Risks Despite HIPAA

Even with stringent HIPAA requirements, healthcare breaches are rampant. Reports show thousands of HIPAA violations and data exposures annually, demonstrating that merely having compliance frameworks doesn’t stop attackers.

The Hidden Costs of Compliance-Only Security

When organizations chase compliance without aligning to deeper risk strategy, the costs go far beyond audit efforts.

1. Opportunity Cost

Security teams spend incredible hours on documentation, standard operating procedure updates, and audit response—hours that could otherwise support vulnerability remediation, threat hunting, and continuous monitoring.

2. False Sense of Security

Executives and boards often equate compliance with safety. But compliance doesn’t guarantee resilience. That false confidence can delay investments in deeper controls until it’s too late.

3. Breach Fallout

When conformity fails, consequences extend far beyond compliance fines. Reputational damage, customer churn, supply chain impacts, and board-level accountability can dwarf regulatory penalties.

Beyond Checkboxes: What Modern Security Needs

To turn compliance from checkbox security into business-aligned risk reduction, organizations should consider the following advanced practices:

1. Continuous Risk Measurement

Shift from periodic compliance assessments to continuous risk evaluation tied to real business outcomes. Tools that quantify risk exposure in financial and operational terms help prioritize investments where they matter most.

2. Threat Modeling & Adversary Emulation

Map attacker tactics relevant to your business context, then test controls against them. Frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK can help organizations think like attackers, not auditors.

3. Metrics That Measure Security Effectiveness

Move away from compliance metrics (“% of controls implemented”) to outcome metrics (“time to detect/respond to threats,” “reduction in high-risk exposures,” etc.). These demonstrate real improvements versus checkbox completion.

4. Integration of Security and Compliance

Security leaders should leverage compliance requirements as part of broader risk strategy—not substitutes. GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) platforms can tie compliance evidence to risk dashboards for a unified view.

How MicroSolved Can Help

At MicroSolved, we’ve seen these pitfalls firsthand. Organizations often approach compliance automation or external consultants expecting silver bullets—but without continuous risk measurement and business context, security controls still fall short.

MicroSolved’s approach focuses on:

Risk-based security program development
Ongoing threat modeling and adversary testing
Metrics and dashboards tied to business outcomes
Integration of compliance frameworks like PCI, HIPAA, ISO 27001 with enterprise risk strategies

If your team is struggling to move beyond checkbox compliance, we’re here to help align your cybersecurity program with real-world risk reduction—not just regulatory requirements.

➡️ Learn more about how MicroSolved can help bridge the gap between compliance and true security effectiveness.

Conclusion: Compliance Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling

Regulatory frameworks remain essential—they set the minimum expectations for protecting data and privacy. But in a world of rapidly evolving threats, compliance alone can’t be the endpoint of your cybersecurity efforts.

Checkbox security gives boards comfort, but attackers don’t check boxes—they exploit gaps.

Security leaders who integrate risk measurement, continuous validation, and business alignment into their compliance programs not only strengthen defenses—they elevate security into a source of competitive advantage.

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

Defending Small Credit Unions in the Age of AI-Driven Synthetic Fraud

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Brent Huston

We’ve seen fraud evolve before. We’ve weathered phishing, credential stuffing, card skimming, and social engineering waves—but what’s coming next makes all of that look like amateur hour. According to Experian and recent security forecasting, we’re entering a new fraud era. One where AI-driven agents operate autonomously, build convincing synthetic identities at scale, and mount adaptive, shape-shifting attacks that traditional defenses can’t keep up with.

For small credit unions and community banks, this isn’t a hypothetical future—it’s an urgent call to action.

The Rise of Synthetic Realities

Criminals are early adopters of innovation. Always have been. But now, 80% of observed autonomous AI agent use in cyberattacks is originating from criminal groups. These aren’t script kiddies with GPT wrappers—these are fully autonomous fraud agents, built to execute entire attack chains from data harvesting to cash-out, all without human intervention.

They’re using the vast stores of breached personal data to forge synthetic identities that are indistinguishable from real customers. The result? Hyper-personalized phishing, credential takeovers, and fraudulent accounts that slip through onboarding and authentication checks like ghosts.

Worse yet, quantum computing is looming. And with it, the shift from “break encryption” to “harvest now, decrypt later” is already in motion. That means data stolen today—unencrypted or encrypted with current algorithms—could be compromised retroactively within a decade or less.

So what can small institutions do? You don’t have the budget of a multinational bank, but that doesn’t mean you’re defenseless.

Three Moves Every Credit Union Must Make Now

1. Harden Identity and Access Controls—Everywhere

This isn’t just about enforcing MFA anymore. It’s about enforcing phishing-resistant MFA. That means FIDO2, passkeys, hardware tokens—methods that don’t rely on SMS or email, which are easily phished or intercepted.

Also critical: rethink your workflows around high-risk actions. Wire transfers, account takeovers, login recovery flows—all of these should have multi-layered checks that include risk scoring, device fingerprinting, and behavioral cues.

And don’t stop at customers. Internal systems used by staff and contractors are equally vulnerable. Compromising a teller or loan officer’s account could give attackers access to systems that trust them implicitly.

2. Tune Your Own Data for AI-Driven Defense

You don’t need a seven-figure fraud platform to start detecting anomalies. Use what you already have: login logs, device info, transaction patterns, location data. There are open-source and affordable ML tools that can help you baseline normal activity and alert on deviations.

But even better—don’t fight alone. Join information-sharing networks like FS-ISAC, InfraGard, or sector-specific fraud intel circles. The earlier you see a new AI phishing campaign or evolving shape-shifting malware variant, the better chance you have to stop it before it hits your members.

3. Start Your “Future Threats” Roadmap Today

You can’t wait until quantum breaks RSA to think about your crypto. Inventory your “crown jewel” data—SSNs, account histories, loan documents—and start classifying which of that needs to be protected even after it’s been stolen. Because if attackers are harvesting now to decrypt later, you’re already in the game whether you like it or not.

At the same time, tabletop exercises should evolve. No more pretending ransomware is the worst-case. Simulate a synthetic ID scam that drains multiple accounts. Roleplay a deepfake CEO fraud call to your CFO. Put AI-enabled fraud on the whiteboard and walk your board through the response.

Final Thoughts: Small Can Still Mean Resilient

Small institutions often pride themselves on their close member relationships and nimbleness. That’s a strength. You can spot strange behavior sooner. You can move faster than a big bank on policy changes. And you can build security into your culture—where it belongs.

But you must act deliberately. AI isn’t waiting, and quantum isn’t slowing down. The criminals have already adapted. It’s our turn.

Let’s not be the last to see the fraud that’s already here.

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

Methodology: MailItemsAccessed-Based Investigation for BEC in Microsoft 365

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Brent Huston

When your organization faces a business-email compromise (BEC) incident, one of the hardest questions is: “What did the attacker actually read or export?” Conventional logs often show only sign-ins or outbound sends, but not the depth of mailbox item access. The MailItemsAccessed audit event in Microsoft 365 Unified Audit Log (UAL) brings far more visibility — if configured correctly. This article outlines a repeatable, defensible process for investigation using that event, from readiness verification to scoping and reporting.

Objective

Provide a repeatable, defensible process to identify, scope, and validate email exposure in BEC investigations using the MailItemsAccessed audit event.

Phase 1 — Readiness Verification (Pre-Incident)

Before an incident hits, you must validate your logging and audit posture. These steps ensure you’ll have usable data.

1. Confirm Licensing

Verify your tenant’s audit plan under Microsoft Purview Audit (Standard or Premium).
- Audit (Standard): default retention 180 days (previously 90).
- Audit (Premium): longer retention (e.g., 365 days or more), enriched logs.
Confirm that your license level supports the MailItemsAccessed event. Many sources state this requires Audit Premium or an E5-level compliance add-on.

2. Validate Coverage

Confirm mailbox auditing is on by default for user mailboxes. Microsoft states this for Exchange Online.
Confirm that MailItemsAccessed is part of the default audit set (or if custom audit sets exist, that it’s included). According to Microsoft documentation: the MailItemsAccessed action “covers all mail protocols … and is enabled by default for users assigned an Office 365 E3/E5 or Microsoft 365 E3/E5 licence.”
For tenants with customised audit sets, ensure the Microsoft defaults are re-applied so that MailItemsAccessedisn’t inadvertently removed.

3. Retention & Baseline

Record what your current audit-log retention policy is (e.g., 180 days vs 365 days) so you know how far back you can search.
Establish a baseline volume of MailItemsAccessed events—how many are generated from normal activity. That helps define thresholds for abnormal behaviour during investigation.

Phase 2 — Investigation Workflow (During Incident)

Once an incident is underway and you have suspected mailboxes, follow structured investigation steps.

1. Identify Affected Accounts

From your alarm sources (e.g., anomalous sign-in alerts, inbound or outbound rule creation, unusual inbox rules, compromised credentials) compile a list of mailboxes that might have been accessed.

2. Extract Evidence

In the Purview portal → Audit → filter for Activity = MailItemsAccessed, specifying the time range that covers suspected attacker dwell time.
Export the results to CSV via the Unified Audit Log.

3. Correlate Access Sessions

Group the MailItemsAccessed results by key session indicators:

ClientIP
SessionId
UserAgent / ClientInfoString

Flag sessions that show:

Unknown or non-corporate IP addresses (e.g., external ASN)
Legacy protocols (IMAP, POP, ActiveSync) or bulk-sync behaviour
User agents indicating automated tooling or scripting

4. Quantify Exposure

Count distinct ItemIds and FolderPaths to determine how many items and which folders were accessed.
Look for throttling indicators (for example more than ~1,000 MailItemsAccessed events in 24 h for a single user may indicate scripted or bulk access).
Use the example KQL queries below (see Section “KQL Example Snippets”).

5. Cross-Correlate with Other Events

Overlay these results with Send audit events and InboxRule/New-InboxRule events to detect lateral-phish, rule-based fraud or data-staging behaviour.
For example, access events followed by mass sends indicate attacker may have read and then exfiltrated or used the account for fraud.

6. Validate Exfil Path

Check the client protocol used by the session. If the client is REST API, bulk sync or legacy protocol, that may indicate the attacker is exfiltrating rather than simply reading.
If MailItemsAccessed shows items accessed using a legacy IMAP/POP or ActiveSync session — that is a red flag for mass download.

Phase 3 — Analysis & Scoping

Once raw data is collected, move into analysis to scope the incident.

1. Establish Attack Session Timeline

Combine sign-in logs (from Microsoft Entra ID Sign‑in Logs) with MailItemsAccessed events to reconstruct dwell time and sequence.
Determine when attacker first gained access, how long they stayed, and when they left.

2. Define Affected Items

Deliver an itemised summary (folder path, count of items, timestamps) of mailbox items accessed.
Limit exposure claims to the items you have logged evidence for — do not assume access of the entire mailbox unless logs show it (or you have other forensic evidence).

3. Corroborate with Throttling and Send Events

If you see unusual high-volume access plus spike in Send events or inbox rule changes, you can conclude automated or bulk access occurred.
Document IOCs (client IPs, session IDs, user-agent strings) tied to the malicious session.

Phase 4 — Reporting & Validation

After investigation you report findings and validate control-gaps.

1. Evidence Summary

Your report should document:

Tenant license type and retention (Audit Standard vs Premium)
Audit coverage verification (mailbox auditing enabled, MailItemsAccessed present)
Affected item count, folder paths, session data (IPs, protocol, timeframe)
Indicators of compromise (IOCs) and signs of mass or scripted access

2. Limitations

Be transparent about limitations:

Upgrading to Audit Premium mid-incident will not backfill missing MailItemsAccessed data for the earlier period. Sources note this gap.
If mailbox auditing or default audit-sets were customised (and MailItemsAccessed omitted), you may lack full visibility. Example commentary notes this risk.

3. Recommendations

Maintain Audit Premium licensing for at-risk tenants (e.g., high-value executive mailboxes or those handling sensitive data).
Pre-stage KQL dashboards to detect anomalies (e.g., bursts of MailItemsAccessed, high counts per hour or per day) so you don’t rely solely on ad-hoc searches.
Include audit-configuration verification (licensing, mail-audit audit-set, retention) in your regular vCISO or governance audit cadence.

KQL Example Snippets

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic	Technique	ID
Collection	Email Collection	T1114.002
Exfiltration	Exfiltration Over Web Services	T1567.002
Discovery	Cloud Service Discovery	T1087.004
Defense Evasion	Valid Accounts (Cloud)	T1078.004

These mappings illustrate how MailItemsAccessed visibility ties directly into attacker-behaviour frameworks in cloud email contexts.

Minimal Control Checklist

Verify Purview Audit plan and retention
Validate MailItemsAccessed events present/searchable for a sample of users
Ensure mailbox auditing defaults (default audit-set) restored and active
Pre-stage anomaly detection queries / dashboards for mailbox-access bursts

Conclusion

When investigating a BEC incident, possession of high-fidelity audit data like MailItemsAccessed transforms your investigation from guesswork into evidence-driven clarity. The key is readiness: licence appropriately, validate your coverage, establish baselines, and when a breach occurs follow a structured workflow from extraction to scoping to reporting. Without that groundwork your post-incident forensics may hit blind spots. But with it you increase your odds of confidently quantifying exposure, attributing access and closing the loop.

Prepare, detect, dissect—repeatably.

References

Microsoft Learn: Manage mailbox auditing – “Mailbox audit logging is turned on by default in all organizations.”
Microsoft Learn: Use MailItemsAccessed to investigate compromised accounts – “The MailItemsAccessed action … is enabled by default for users that are assigned an Office 365 E3/E5 or Microsoft 365 E3/E5 license.”
Microsoft Learn: Auditing solutions in Microsoft Purview – licensing and search prerequisites.
Office365ITPros: Enable MailItemsAccessed event for Exchange Online – “Purview Audit Premium is included in Office 365 E5 and … Audit (Standard) is available to E3 customers.”
TrustedSec blog: MailItemsAccessed woes – “According to Microsoft, this event is only accessible if you have the Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium) functionality.”
Practical365: Microsoft’s slow delivery of MailItemsAccessed audit event – retention commentary.
O365Info: Manage audit log retention policies – up to 10 years for Premium.
Office365ITPros: Mailbox audit event ingestion issues for E3 users.
RedCanary blog: Entra ID service principals and BEC – “MailItemsAccessed is a very high volume record …”

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

A Modern Ruse: When “Cloudflare” Phishing Goes Full-Screen

Posted on October 29, 2025 by Brent Huston

Over the years, phishing campaigns have evolved from crude HTML forms to shockingly convincing impersonations of the web infrastructure we rely on every day. The latest example Adam spotted is a masterclass in deception—and a case study in what it looks like when phishing meets full-stack engineering.

Let’s break it down.

The Setup

The page loads innocuously. A user stumbles upon what appears to be a familiar Cloudflare “Just a moment…” screen. If you’ve ever browsed the internet behind any semblance of WAF protection, you’ve seen the tell-tale page hundreds of times. Except this one isn’t coming from Cloudflare. It’s fake. Every part of it.

Behind the scenes, the JavaScript executes a brutal move: it stops the current page (window.stop()), wipes the DOM clean, and replaces it with a base64-decoded HTML iframe that mimics Cloudflare’s Turnstile challenge interface. It spoofs your current host into the title bar and dynamically injects the fake content.

A very neat trick—if it weren’t malicious.

The Play

Once the interface loads, it identifies your OS—at least it pretends to. In truth, the script always forces "mac" as the user’s OS regardless of reality. Why? Because the rest of the social engineering depends on that.

It shows terminal instructions and prominently displays a “Copy” button.

The payload?

Let that sink in. This isn’t just phishing. This is copy-paste remote code execution. It doesn’t ask for credentials. It doesn’t need a login form. It needs you to paste and hit enter. And if you do, it installs something persistent in the background—likely a beacon, loader, or dropper.

The Tell

The page hides its maliciousness through layers of base64 obfuscation. It forgoes any network indicators until the moment the user executes the command. Even then, the site returns an HTTP 418 (“I’m a teapot”) when fetched via typical tooling like curl. Likely, it expects specific headers or browser behavior.

Notably:

Impersonates Cloudflare Turnstile UI with shocking visual fidelity.
Forces macOS instructions regardless of the actual user agent.
Abuses clipboard to encourage execution of the curl|bash combo.
Uses base64 to hide the entire UI and payload.
Drops via backgrounded nohup shell execution.

Containment (for Mac targets)

If a user copied and ran the payload, immediate action is necessary. Disconnect the device from the network and begin triage:

Kill live processes:

pkill -f 'curl .*secureapimiddleware\[.]com' pkill -f 'nohup bash'
Inspect for signs of persistence:

ls ~/Library/LaunchAgents /Library/Launch* 2>/dev/null | egrep 'strix|gamma|bash' crontab -l | egrep 'curl|strix'
Review shell history and nohup output:

grep 'secureapimiddleware' ~/.bash_history ~/.zsh_history find ~ -name 'nohup.out'

If you find dropped binaries, reimage the host unless you can verify system integrity end-to-end.

A Lesson in Trust Abuse

This isn’t the old “email + attachment” phishing game. This is trust abuse on a deeper level. It hijacks visual cues, platform indicators, and operating assumptions about services like Cloudflare. It tricks users not with malware attachments, but with shell copy-pasta. That’s a much harder thing to detect—and a much easier thing to execute for attackers.

Final Thought

Train your users not just to avoid shady emails, but to treat curl | bash from the internet as radioactive. No “validation badge” or CAPTCHA-looking widget should ever ask you to run terminal commands.

This is one of the most clever phishing attacks I’ve seen lately—and a chilling sign of where things are headed.

Stay safe out there.

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

When the Tools We Embrace Become the Tools They Exploit — AI and Automation in the Cybersecurity Arms Race

Posted on October 27, 2025 by Brent Huston

Introduction
We live in a world of accelerating change, and nowhere is that more evident than in cybersecurity operations. Enterprises are rushing to adopt AI and automation technologies in their security operations centres (SOCs) to reduce mean time to detect (MTTD), enhance threat hunting, reduce cyberalert fatigue, and generally eke out more value from scarce resources. But in parallel, adversaries—whether financially motivated cybercriminal gangs, nation‑states, or hacktivists—are themselves adopting (and in some cases advancing) these same enabling technologies. The result: a moving target, one where the advantage is fleeting unless defenders recognise the full implications, adapt processes and governance, and invest in human‑machine partnerships rather than simply tool acquisition.

A digital image of a brain thinking 4684455

In this post I’ll explore the attacker/defender dynamics around AI/automation, technology adoption challenges, governance and ethics, how to prioritise automation versus human judgement, and finally propose a roadmap for integrating AI/automation into your SOC with realistic expectations and process discipline.

1. Overview of Attacker/Defender AI Dynamics

The basic story is: defenders are trying to adopt AI/automation, but threat actors are often moving faster, or in some cases have fewer constraints, and thus are gaining asymmetric advantages.

Put plainly: attackers are weaponising AI/automation as part of their toolkit (for reconnaissance, social engineering, malware development, evasion) and defenders are scrambling to catch up. Some of the specific offensive uses: AI to craft highly‑persuasive phishing emails, to generate deep‑fake audio or video assets, to automate vulnerability discovery and exploitation at scale, to support lateral movement and credential stuffing campaigns.

For defenders, AI/automation promises faster detection, richer context, reduction of manual drudge work, and the ability to scale limited human resources. But the pace of adoption, the maturity of process, the governance and skills gaps, and the need to integrate these into a human‑machine teaming model mean that many organisations are still in the early innings. In short: the arms race is on, and we’re behind.

2. Key Technology Adoption Challenges: Data, Skills, Trust

As organisations swallow the promise of AI/automation, they often underestimate the foundational requirements. Here are three big challenge areas:

a) Data

AI and ML need clean, well‑structured data. Many security operations environments are plagued with siloed data, alert overload, inconsistent taxonomy, missing labels, and legacy tooling. Without good data, AI becomes garbage‑in/garbage‑out.
Attackers, on the other hand, are using publicly available models, third‑party tools and malicious automation pipelines that require far less polish—so they have a head start.

b) Skills and Trust

Deploying an AI‑powered security tool is only part of the solution. Tuning the models, understanding their outputs, incorporating them into workflows, and trusting them requires skilled personnel. Many SOC teams simply don’t yet have those resources.
Trust is another factor: model explainability, bias, false positives/negatives, adversarial manipulation of models—all of these undermine operator confidence.

c) Process Change vs Tool Acquisition

Too many organisations acquire “AI powered” tools but leave underlying processes, workflows, roles and responsibilities unchanged. The tool then becomes a silos‑in‑a‑box rather than a transformational capability.
Without adjusted processes, organisations can end up with “alert‑spam on steroids” or AI acting as a black box forcing humans to babysit again.
In short: People and process matter at least as much as technology.

3. Governance & Ethics of AI in Cyber Defence

Deploying AI and automation in cyber defence doesn’t simply raise technical questions — it raises governance and ethics questions.

Organisations need to define who is accountable for AI‑driven decisions (for example a model autonomously taking containment action), how they audit and validate AI output, how they respond if the model is attacked or manipulated, and how they ensure human oversight.
Ethical issues include: (i) making sure model biases don’t produce blind spots or misclassifications; (ii) protecting privacy when feeding data into ML systems; (iii) understanding that attackers may exploit the same models or our systems’ dependence on them; and (iv) ensuring transparency where human decision‑makers remain in the loop.

A governance framework should address model lifecycle (training, validation, monitoring, decommissioning), adversarial threat modeling (how might the model itself be attacked), and human‑machine teaming protocols (when does automation act, when do humans intervene).

4. Prioritising Automation vs Human Judgement

One of the biggest questions in SOC evolution is: how do we draw the line between automation/AI and human judgment? The answer: there is no single line — the optimal state is human‑machine collaboration, with clearly defined tasks for each.

Automation‑first for repetitive, high‑volume, well‑defined tasks: For example, triage of alerts, enrichment of IOC/IOA (indicators/observables), initial containment steps, known‑pattern detection. AI can accelerate these tasks, free up human time, and reduce mean time to respond.
Humans for context, nuance, strategy, escalation: Humans bring judgement, business context, threat‑scenario understanding, adversary insight, ethics, and the ability to handle novel or ambiguous situations.
Define escalation thresholds: Automation might execute actions up to a defined confidence level; anything below should escalate to a human analyst.
Continuous feedback loop: Human analysts must feed back into model tuning, rules updates, and process improvement — treating automation as a living capability, not a “set‑and‑forget” installation.
Avoid over‑automation risks: Automating without oversight can lead to automation‑driven errors, cascading actions, or missing the adversary‑innovation edge. Also, if you automate everything, you risk deskilling your human team.

The right blend depends on your maturity, your toolset, your threat profile, and your risk appetite — but the underlying principle is: automation should augment humans, not replace them.

5. Roadmap for Successful AI/Automation Integration in the SOC

Assess your maturity and readiness
Define use‑cases with business value
Build foundation: data, tooling, skills
Pilot, iterate, scale
Embed human‑machine teaming and continuous improvement
Maintain governance, ethics and risk oversight
Stay ahead of the adversary

(See main post above for in-depth detail on each step.)

Conclusion: The Moving Target and the Call to Action

The fundamental truth is this: when defenders pause, attackers surge. The race between automation and AI in cyber defence is no longer about if, but about how fast and how well. Threat actors are not waiting for your slow adoption cycles—they are already leveraging automation and generative AI to scale reconnaissance, craft phishing campaigns, evade detection, and exploit vulnerabilities at speed and volume. Your organisation must not only adopt AI/automation, but adopt it with the right foundation, the right process, the right governance and the right human‑machine teaming mindset.

At MicroSolved we specialise in helping organisations bridge the gap between technological promise and operational reality. If you’re a CISO, SOC manager or security‑operations leader who wants to –

understand how your data, processes and people stack up for AI/automation readiness
prioritise use‑cases that drive business value rather than hype
design human‑machine workflows that maximise SOC impact
embed governance, ethics and adversarial AI awareness
stay ahead of threat actors who are already using automation as a wedge into your environment

… then we’d welcome a conversation. Reach out to us today at info@microsolved.com or call +1.614.351.1237and let’s discuss how we can help you move from reactive to resilient, from catching up to keeping ahead.

Thanks for reading. Be safe, be vigilant—and let’s make sure the advantage stays with the good guys.

References

ISC2 AI Adoption Pulse Survey 2025
IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2025
Accenture State of Cybersecurity Resilience 2025
Cisco 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index
Darktrace State of AI Cybersecurity Report 2025
World Economic Forum: Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity Report 2025

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

OT & IT Convergence: Defending the Industrial Attack Surface in 2025

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Brent Huston

In 2025, the boundary between IT and operational technology (OT) is more porous than ever. What once were siloed environments are now deeply intertwined—creating new opportunities for efficiency, but also a vastly expanded attack surface. For industrial, manufacturing, energy, and critical infrastructure operators, the stakes are high: disruption in OT is real-world damage, not just data loss.

PLC

This article lays out the problem space, dissecting how adversaries move, where visibility fails, and what defense strategies are maturing in this fraught environment.

The Convergence Imperative — and Its Risks

What Is IT/OT Convergence?

IT/OT convergence is the process of integrating information systems (e.g. ERP, MES, analytics, control dashboards) with OT systems (e.g. SCADA, DCS, PLCs, RTUs). The goal: unify data flows, enable predictive maintenance, real-time monitoring, control logic feedback loops, operational analytics, and better asset management.

Yet, as IT and OT merge, their worlds’ assumptions—availability, safety, patch cycles, threat models—collide. OT demands always-on control; IT is optimized for data confidentiality and dynamic architecture. Bridging the two without opening the gates to compromise is the core challenge.

Why 2025 Is Different (and Dangerous)

Attacks are physical now. The 2025 Waterfall Threat Report shows a dramatic rise in attacks with physical consequences—shut-downs, equipment damage, lost output. Waterfall Security Solutions
Ransomware and state actors converge on OT. OT environments are now a primary target for adversaries aiming for disruption, not just data theft. zeronetworks.com+2Industrial Cyber+2
Device proliferation, blind spots. The explosion of IIoT/OT-connected sensors and actuators means incremental exposures mount. Nexus+2IAEE+2
Legacy systems with little guardrails. Many OT systems were never built with security in mind; patching is difficult or impossible. SSH+2Industrial Cyber+2
Stronger regulation and visibility demands. Critical infrastructure sectors face growing pressure—and liability—for cyber resilience. Honeywell+2Fortinet+2
Maturing defenders. Some organizations are already reducing attack frequency through segmentation, threat intelligence, and leadership-driven strategies. Fortinet

Attack Flow: From IT to OT — How the Adversary Moves

Understanding attacker paths is key to defending the convergence.

Initial foothold in IT. Phishing, vulnerabilities, supply chain, remote access are typical vectors.
Lateral movement toward bridging zones. Jump servers, VPNs, misconfigured proxies, flat networks let attackers pivot. Industrial Cyber+2zeronetworks.com+2
Transit through DMZ / industrial demilitarized zones. Poorly controlled conduits allow protocol bridging, data transfer, or command injection. iotsecurityinstitute.com+2Palo Alto Networks+2
Exploit OT protocols and logic. Once in the OT zone, attackers abuse weak or proprietary protocols (Modbus, EtherNet/IP, S7, etc.), manipulate command logic, disable safety interlocks. arXiv+2iotsecurityinstitute.com+2
Physical disruption or sabotage. Alter sensor thresholds, open valves, shut down systems, or destroy equipment.

Because OT environments often have weaker monitoring and fewer detection controls, malicious actions may go unnoticed until damage occurs.

The Visibility & Inventory Gap

You can’t protect what you can’t see.

Publicly exposed OT devices number in the tens of thousands globally—many running legacy firmware with known critical vulnerabilities. arXiv
Some organizations report only minimal visibility into OT activity within central security operations. Nasstar
Legacy or proprietary protocols (e.g. serial, Modbus, nonstandard encodings) resist detection by standard IT tools.
Asset inventories are often stale, manual, or incomplete.
Patch lifecycle data, firmware versions, configuration drift are poorly tracked in OT systems.

Bridging that visibility gap is a precondition for any robust defense in the converged world.

Architectural Controls: Segmentation, Microperimeters & Zero Trust for OT

You must treat OT not as a static, trusted zone but as a layered, zero-trust-aware domain.

1. Zone & Conduit Model

Apply segmentation by functional zones (process control, supervisory, DMZ, enterprise) and use controlled conduits for traffic. This limits blast radius. iotsecurityinstitute.com+2Palo Alto Networks+2

2. Microperimeters & Microsegmentation

Within a zone, restrict east-west traffic. Only permit communications justified by policy and process. Use software-defined controls or enforcement at gateway devices.

3. Zero Trust Principles for OT

Least privilege access: Human, service, and device accounts should only have the rights they need to perform tasks. iotsecurityinstitute.com+1
Continuous verification: Authenticate and revalidate sessions, devices, and commands.
Context-based access: Enforce access based on time, behavior, process state, operational context.
Secure access overlays: Replace jump boxes and VPNs with secure, isolated access conduits that broker access rather than exposing direct paths. Industrial Cyber+1

4. Isolation & Filtering of Protocols

Deep understanding of OT protocols is required to permit or deny specific commands or fields. Use protocol-aware firewalls or DPI (deep packet inspection) for industrial protocols.

5. Redundancy & Fail-Safe Paths

Architect fallback paths and redundancy such that the failure of a security component doesn’t cascade into OT downtime.

Detection & Response in OT Environments

Because OT environments are often low-change, anomaly-based detection is especially valuable.

Anomaly & Behavioral Monitoring

Use models of normal process behavior, network traffic baselines, and device state transitions to detect deviations. This approach catches zero-days and novel attacks that signature tools miss. Nozomi Networks+2zeronetworks.com+2

Protocol-Aware Monitoring

Deep inspection of industrial protocols (Modbus, DNP3, EtherNet/IP, S7) lets you detect invalid or dangerous commands (e.g. disabling PLC logic, spoofing commands).

Hybrid IT/OT SOCs & Playbooks

Forging a unified operations center that spans IT and OT (or tightly coordinates) is vital. Incident playbooks should understand process impact, safe rollback paths, and physical fallback strategies.

Response & Containment

Quarantine zones or devices quickly.
Use “safe shutdown” logic rather than blunt kill switches.
Leverage automated rollback or fail-safe states.
Ensure forensic capture of device commands and logs for post-mortem.

Patch, Maintenance & Change in OT Environments

Patching is thorny in OT—disrupting uptime or control logic can have dire consequences. But ignoring vulnerabilities is not viable either.

Risk-Based Patch Prioritization

Prioritize based on:

Criticality of the device (safety, control, reliability).
Exposure (whether reachable from IT or remote networks).
Known exploitability and threat context.

Scheduled Windows & Safe Rollouts

Use maintenance windows, laboratory testing, staged rollouts, and fallback plans to apply patches in controlled fashion.

Virtual Patching / Compensating Controls

Where direct patching is impractical, employ compensating controls—firewall rules, filtering, command-level controls, or wrappers that mediate traffic.

Vendor Coordination & Secure Updates

Work with vendors for safe update mechanisms, integrity verification, rollback capability, and cryptographic signing of firmware.

Configuration Lockdown & Hardening

Disable unused services, remove default accounts, enforce least privilege controls, and lock down configuration interfaces. Industrial Cyber

Operating in Hybrid Environments: Best Practices & Pitfalls

Journeys, not Big Bangs. Start with a pilot cell or site; mature gradually.
Cross-domain teams. Build integrated IT/OT guardrails teams; train OT engineers with security awareness and IT folk with process sensitivity. iotsecurityinstitute.com+2Secomea+2
Change management & governance. Formal processes must span both domains, with risk acceptance, escalation, and rollback capabilities.
Security debt awareness. Legacy systems will always exist; plan compensating controls, migration paths, or compensating wrappers.
Simulation & digital twins. Use testbeds or digital twins to validate security changes before deployment.
Supply chain & third-party access. Strong control over third-party remote access is essential—no direct device access unless brokered and constrained. Industrial Cyber+2zeronetworks.com+2

Governance, Compliance & Regulatory Alignment

Map your security controls to frameworks such as ISA/IEC 62443, NIST SP 800‑82, and relevant national ICS/OT guidelines. iotsecurityinstitute.com+2Tenable®+2
Develop risk governance that includes process safety, availability, and cybersecurity in tandem.
Align with critical infrastructure regulation (e.g. NIS2 in Europe, SEC cyber rules, local ICS/OT mandates). Honeywell+1
Build executive visibility and metrics (mean time to containment, blast radius, safety impact) to support prioritization.

Roadmap: From Zero → Maturity

Here’s a rough maturation path you might use:

Phase	Focus	Key Activities
Pilot / Awareness	Reduce risk in one zone	Map asset inventory, segment pilot cell, deploy detection sensors
Hardening & Control	Extend structural defenses	Enforce microperimeters, apply least privilege, protocol filtering
Detection & Response	Build visibility & control	Anomaly detection, OT-aware monitoring, SOC integration
Patching & Maintenance	Improve security hygiene	Risk-based patching, vendor collaboration, configuration lockdown
Scale & Governance	Expand and formalize	Extend to all zones, incident playbooks, governance models, metrics, compliance
Continuous Optimization	Adapt & refine	Threat intelligence feedback, lessons learned, iterative improvements

Start small, show value, then scale incrementally—don’t try to boil the ocean in one leap.

Use Case Scenarios

Remote Maintenance Abuse
A vendor’s remote access via a jump host is compromised. The attacker uses that jump host to send commands to PLCs via an unfiltered conduit, shutting down a production line.
Logic Tampering via Protocol Abuse
An attacker intercepts commands over EtherNet/IP and alters setpoints on a pressure sensor—causing shock pressure and damaging equipment before operators notice.
Firmware Exploit on Legacy Device
A field RTU is running firmware with a known remote vulnerability. The attacker exploits that, gains control, and uses it as a pivot point deeper into OT.
Lateral Movement from IT
A phishing campaign generates a foothold on IT. The attacker escalates privileges, accesses the central historian, and from there reaches into OT DMZ and onward.

Each scenario highlights the need for segmentation, detection, and disciplined control at each boundary.

Checklist & Practical Guidance

⚙️ Inventory & visibility: Map all OT/IIoT devices, asset data, communications, and protocols.
🔒 Zone & micro‑segment: Enforce strict controls around process, supervisory, and enterprise connectivity.
✅ Least privilege and zero trust: Limit access to the minimal set of rights, revalidate often.
📡 Protocol filtering: Use deep packet inspection to validate or block unsafe commands.
💡 Anomaly detection: Use behavioral models, baselining, and alerts on deviations.
🛠 Patching strategy: Risk-based prioritization, scheduled windows, fallback planning.
🧷 Hardening & configuration control: Remove unused services, lock down interfaces, enforce secure defaults.
🔀 Incident playbooks: Include safe rollback, forensic capture, containment paths.
👥 Cross-functional teams: Co-locate or synchronize OT, IT, security, operations staff.
📈 Metrics & executive reporting: Use security KPIs contextualized to safety, availability, and damage containment.
🔄 Continuous review & iteration: Ingest lessons learned, threat intelligence, and adapt.
📜 Framework alignment: Use ISA/IEC 62443, NIST 800‑82, or sector-specific guidelines.

Final Thoughts

As of 2025, you can’t treat OT as a passive, hidden domain. The convergence is inevitable—and attackers know it. The good news is that mature defense strategies are emerging: segmentation, zero trust, anomaly-based detection, and governance-focused integration.

The path forward is not about plugging every hole at once. It’s about building layered defenses, prioritizing by criticality, and evolving your posture incrementally. In a world where a successful exploit can physically damage infrastructure or disrupt a grid, the resilience you build today may be your strongest asset tomorrow.

More Info and Assistance

For discussion, more information, or assistance, please contact us. (614) 351-1237 will get us on the phone, and info@microsolved.com will get us via email. Reach out to schedule a no-hassle and no-pressure discussion. Put out 30+ years of OT experience to work for you!

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

Distracted Minds, Not Sophisticated Cyber Threats — Why Human Factors Now Reign Supreme

Posted on August 25, 2025 by Brent Huston

Problem Statement: In cybersecurity, we’ve long feared the specter of advanced malware and AI-enabled attacks. Yet today’s frontline is far more mundane—and far more human. Distraction, fatigue, and lack of awareness among employees now outweigh technical threats as the root cause of security incidents.

A woman standing in a room lit by bright fluorescent lights surrounded by whiteboards and sticky notes filled with ideas sketching out concepts and plans 5728491

A KnowBe4 study released in August 2025 sets off alarm bells: 43 % of security incidents stem from employee distraction—while only 17 % involve sophisticated attacks.

1. Distraction vs. Technical Threats — A Face-off

The numbers are telling:

Distraction: 43 %
Lack of awareness training: 41 %
Fatigue or burnout: 31 %
Pressure to act quickly: 33 %
Sophisticated attack (the myths we fear): just 17 %

What explains the gap between perceived threat and actual risk? The answer lies in human bandwidth—our cognitive load, overload, and vulnerability under distraction. Cyber risk is no longer about perimeter defense—it’s about human cognitive limits.

Meanwhile, phishing remains the dominant attack vector—74 % of incidents—often via impersonation of executives or trusted colleagues.

2. Reviving Security Culture: Avoid “Engagement Fatigue”

Many organizations rely on awareness training and phishing simulations, but repetition without innovation breeds fatigue.

Here’s how to refresh your security culture:

Contextualized, role-based training – tailor scenarios to daily workflows (e.g., finance staff vs. HR) so the relevance isn’t lost.
Micro-learning and practice nudges – short, timely prompts that reinforce good security behavior (e.g., reminders before onboarding tasks or during common high-risk activities).
Leadership modeling – when leadership visibly practices security—verifying emails, using MFA—it normalizes behavior across the organization.
Peer discussions and storytelling – real incident debriefs (anonymized, of course) often land harder than scripted scenarios.

Behavioral analytics can drive these nudges. For example: detect when sensitive emails are opened, when copy-paste occurs from external sources, or when MFA overrides happen unusually. Then trigger a gentle “Did you mean to do this?” prompt.

3. Emerging Risk: AI-Generated Social Engineering

Though only about 11 % of respondents have encountered AI threats so far, 60 % fear AI-generated phishing and deepfakes in the near future.

This fear is well-placed. A deepfake voice or video “CEO” request is far more convincing—and dangerous.

Preparedness strategies include:

Red teaming AI threats — simulate deepfake or AI-generated social engineering in safe environments.
Multi-factor and human challenge points — require confirmations via secondary channels (e.g., “Call the sender” rule).
Employee resilience training — teach detection cues (synthetic audio artifacts, uncanny timing, off-script wording).
AI citizenship policies — proactively define what’s allowed in internal tools, communication, and collaboration platforms.

4. The Confidence Paradox

Nearly 90 % of security leaders feel confident in their cyber-resilience—yet the data tells us otherwise.

Overconfidence can blind us: we might under-invest in human risk management while trusting tech to cover all our bases.

5. A Blueprint for Human-Centric Defense

Problem	Actionable Solution
Engagement fatigue with awareness training	Use micro-learning, role-based scenarios, and frequent but brief content
Lack of behavior change	Employ real-time nudges and behavioral analytics to catch risky actions before harm
Distraction, fatigue	Promote wellness, reduce task overload, implement focus-support scheduling
AI-driven social engineering	Test with red teams, enforce cross-channel verification, build detection literacy
Overconfidence	Benchmark human risk metrics (click rates, incident reports); tie performance to behavior outcomes

Final Thoughts

At its heart, cybersecurity remains a human endeavor. We chase the perfect firewall, but our biggest vulnerabilities lie in our own cognitive gaps. The KnowBe4 study shows that distraction—not hacker sophistication—is the dominant risk in 2025. It’s time to adapt.

We must refresh how we engage our people—not just with better tools, but with better empathy, smarter training design, and the foresight to counter AI-powered con games.

This is the human-centered security shift Brent Huston has championed. Let’s own it.

Help and More Information

If your organization is struggling to combat distraction, engagement fatigue, or the evolving risk of AI-powered social engineering, MicroSolved can help.

Our team specializes in behavioral analytics, adaptive awareness programs, and human-focused red teaming. Let’s build a more resilient, human-aware security culture—together.

👉 Reach out to MicroSolved today to schedule a consultation or request more information. (info@microsolved.com or +1.614.351.1237)

References

KnowBe4. Infosecurity Europe 2025: Human Error & Cognitive Risk Findings. knowbe4.com
ITPro. Employee distraction is now your biggest cybersecurity risk. itpro.com
Sprinto. Trends in 2025 Cybersecurity Culture and Controls.
Deloitte Insights. Behavioral Nudges in Security Awareness Programs.
Axios & Wikipedia. AI-Generated Deepfakes and Psychological Manipulation Trends.
TechRadar. The Growing Threat of AI in Phishing & Vishing.
MSI :: State of Security. Human Behavior Modeling in Red Teaming Environments.

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

The New Golden Hour in Ransomware Defense

Posted on August 19, 2025 by Brent Huston

Organizations today face a dire reality: ransomware campaigns—often orchestrated as Ransomware‑as‑a‑Service (RaaS)—are engineered for speed. Leveraging automation and affiliate models, attackers breach, spread, and encrypt entire networks in well under 60 minutes. The traditional incident response window has all but vanished.

This shrinking breach-to-impact interval—what we now call the ransomware golden hour—demands a dramatic reframing of how security teams think, plan, and respond.

Why It Matters

Attackers now move faster than ever. A rising number of campaigns are orchestrated through RaaS platforms, democratizing highly sophisticated tools and lowering the technical barrier for attackers^[1]. When speed is baked into the attack lifecycle, traditional defense mechanisms struggle to keep pace.

Analysts warn that these hyper‑automated intrusions are leaving security teams in a race against time—with breach response windows shrinking inexorably, and full network encryption occurring in under an hour^[2].

The Implications

Delayed detection equals catastrophic failure. Every second counts: if detection slips beyond the first minute, containment may already be too late.
Manual response no longer cuts it. Threat hunting, playbook activation, and triage require automation and proactive orchestration.
Preparedness becomes survival. Only by rehearsing and refining the first 60 minutes can teams hope to blunt the attack’s impact.

What Automation Can—and Can’t—Do

What It Can Do

Accelerate detection with AI‑powered anomaly detection and behavior analysis.
Trigger automatic containment via EDR/XDR systems.
Enforce execution of playbooks with automation^[3].

What It Can’t Do

Replace human judgment.
Compensate for lack of preparation.
Eliminate all dwell time.

Elements SOCs Must Pre‑Build for “First 60 Minutes” Response

Clear detection triggers and alert criteria.
Pre‑defined milestone checkpoints:
- T+0 to T+15: Detection and immediate isolation.
- T+15 to T+30: Network-wide containment.
- T+30 to T+45: Damage assessment.
- T+45 to T+60: Launch recovery protocols^[4].
Automated containment workflows^[5].
Clean, tested backups^[6].
Chain-of-command communication plans^[7].
Simulations and playbook rehearsals^[8].

When Speed Makes the Difference: Real‑World Flash Points

Only 17% of enterprises paid ransoms in 2025. Rapid containment was key^[6].
Disrupted ransomware gangs quickly rebrand and return^[9].
St. Paul cyberattack: swift containment, no ransom paid^[10].

Conclusion: Speed Is the New Defense

Ransomware has evolved into an operational race—powered by automation, fortified by crime‑as‑a‑service economics, and executed at breakneck pace. In this world, the golden hour isn’t a theory—it’s a mandate.

Design and rehearse a first‑60‑minute response playbook.
Automate containment while aligning with legal, PR, and executive workflows.
Ensure backups are clean and recovery-ready.
Stay agile—because attackers aren’t stuck on yesterday’s playbook.

References

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.

Recalibrating Cyber Risk in a Geopolitical Era: A Bayesian Wake‑Up Call

Posted on June 19, 2025 by Brent Huston

The cyber landscape doesn’t evolve. It pivots. In recent months, shifting signals have upended our baseline assumptions around geopolitical cyber risk, OT/edge security, and the influence of AI. What we believed to be emerging threats are now pressing realities.

The Bayesian Recalibration

New data forces sharper estimates:

Geopolitical Spillover: Revised from ~40% to 70% – increasingly precise cyberattacks targeting U.S. infrastructure.
AI‑Driven Attack Dominance: Revised from ~50% to 85% – fueled by deepfakes, polymorphic malware, and autonomous offensive tools.
Hardware & Edge Exploits: Revised from ~30% to 60% – threats embedded deep in physical systems going unnoticed.

Strategic Imperatives

To align with this recalibrated threat model, organizations must:

Integrate Geopolitical Intelligence: Tie cyber defenses to global conflict zones and state-level actor capabilities.
Invest in Autonomous AI Defenses: Move beyond static signatures—deploy systems that learn, adapt, and respond in real time.
Defend at the OT/Edge Level: Extend controls to IoT, industrial systems, medical devices, and field hardware.
Fortify Supply‑Chain Resilience: Assume compromise—implement firmware scanning, provenance checks, and strong vendor assurance.
Join Threat‑Sharing Communities: Engage with ISACs and sector groups—collective defense can mean early detection.

The Path Ahead

This Bayesian lens widens our aperture. We must adopt multi‑domain vigilance—digital, physical, and AI—even as adaptation becomes our constant. Organizations that decode subtle signals, recalibrate rapidly, and deploy anticipatory defense will not only survive—they’ll lead.

* AI tools were used as a research assistant for this content, but human moderation and writing are also included. The included images are AI-generated.