AI & quantum threats redefine priorities for Cybersecurity Month
As Cybersecurity Awareness Month approaches its 22nd year in October, the perennial theme of "Secure Our World" resonates more urgently than ever. Across both the public and private sectors, security leaders are grappling with intensifying digital threats, especially as artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum technologies reshape the threat landscape and demand new strategies for resilience.
Experts agree that 2025's cybersecurity climate is profoundly influenced by rapid technological evolution. Prakash Mana, CEO of Cloudbrink, highlights that AI has become a pivotal challenge for security teams, particularly in software development. "AI is the next big hurdle for security teams, especially on the software development side. Companies need to make sure that users don't use AI to create hacking bots either on purpose or accidentally. They also need AI access controls so that AI can only access the services it should. Otherwise, you leave yourself open to bad actors who could force agents to access bad sources. Visibility into AI activity is key to safe use."
Mana notes the rise of agentic AI - autonomous systems capable of sophisticated decision-making - as a double-edged sword. While agentic AI offers dramatic efficiency gains, its adoption also introduces shadow AI, difficulties in access control, and increasingly sophisticated attacks. "Most AI agent developers are focused on efficiency, not security," Mana emphasises. He advises organisations to prioritise visibility: "Establish a way to monitor AI to see what it's accessing, which users are using it, and what they're using it for. If you don't have an AI policy already, you need to create one now." For enterprises, the need for robust AI governance frameworks and policies is immediate, lest they face significant operational risk.
The human dimension of cybersecurity remains front and centre as well. Data from Proofpoint's 2025 Voice of the CISO report underscores the perspective of security experts in Singapore, where three in five Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) see people as the greatest risk to their organisations. JP Yu, Vice President for Southeast Asia and Korea at Proofpoint, points to the enduring role of human behaviour in enabling threats: "Cybersecurity is fundamentally a human risk, not just a technology issue. Our Human Factor report reveals that 25% of advanced persistent threat campaigns rely on social engineering - exploiting human behaviour."
Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Yu argues, is an opportunity to move beyond tick-box compliance and foster a genuine culture of security awareness. "The challenge today goes beyond awareness - it is about driving real behaviour change. True resilience requires moving past compliance to identify high-risk individuals, deliver continuous learning, and embed lasting behavioural change to stay secure in the digital world." Thus, employee education, while necessary, must be coupled with ongoing vigilance and targeted interventions for those most at risk.
The emergence of quantum computing presents still more formidable challenges. Karl Holmqvist, Founder and CEO at Lastwall, urges organisations to fortify their identity security protocols and ready themselves for quantum-era threats. "Adversarial state actors are pre-positioning in critical infrastructure and on the edge gear we forget to watch," Holmqvist cautions. His advice is practical and urgent: require routers, VPNs, and firewalls to produce forensically capable logs, mandate phishing-resistant multifactor authentication for administrators, and build live cryptography registers to track and manage encryption protocols.
Holmqvist also recommends organisations prepare for the transition to post-quantum cryptography standards, including those outlined by NIST (FIPS 203/204/205). He advocates for tracking and improving the speed at which security changes can be made - "build and then improve change-latency metrics" - to ensure not just theoretical readiness, but operational capability in the face of new forms of attack.
In sum, this year's Cybersecurity Awareness Month serves as a clarion call: technology and talent must be continuously developed to contest both emerging and persistent risks. AI's expansion creates efficiencies and vulnerabilities in equal measure, while the fundamental unpredictability of human behaviour remains a stubborn weak point. As quantum threats loom, organisations are urged not to wait for a crisis to act, but to take bold, practical steps now - tightening identity controls, elevating behavioural vigilance, and reinforcing their cryptographic defences. The consensus from sector leaders is clear: awareness is only the beginning. Readiness, resilience, and the willingness to adapt are what will keep our world secure.
