SANSFIRE 2025: SANS@Night - Rethinking the Weakest Link: Human Roles in AI-Driven Cybersecurity

The persistent framing of users as the “weakest link” in cybersecurity has long shaped how risks and responsibilities are distributed in digital systems. However, in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), this narrative demands reexamination. As AI increasingly mediates critical decisions, from authentication to threat detection, the question of “who or what” constitutes the weakest link becomes more complex. This presentation interrogates the validity and implications of this label in contemporary AI-enabled systems. Drawing from human-centered computing, cybersecurity, and AI ethics literature, we explore how system design, algorithmic opacity, and socio-technical contexts contribute to security failures often misattributed to users.