The Psychology of Cybersecurity: Human behavior in the age of AI

Cybersecurity has long been dominated by technical defenses, yet attackers increasingly exploit human vulnerabilities rather than system flaws. In this talk Tarnveer Singh and Dr Sarah Zheng, authors of The Psychology of Cybersecurity argue that a deeper understanding of human behavior is essential to strengthening our defenses. Drawing on state-of-the-art research and decades of industry experience, they explore how psychology shapes cyber risk, why traditional security advice is failing in the age of advanced AI, and how the cybersecurity profession must adapt.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand why human behavior is central to cybersecurity success and failure
• Learn how attackers exploit psychological biases and vulnerabilities – especially with the help of AI
• Explore why conventional security advice is increasingly ineffective in today’s threat landscape
• Discover strategies for integrating psychology into cybersecurity policies, education and tool development
• Gain actionable insights on building defenses that account for both technical and human vulnerabilities