Business

How AI is transforming trust management in cyber resilience

Friday, 28 November 2025 5:31AM UTC

AI is not only reshaping cyber attack tactics but also revolutionising how trust is understood and managed within organisations, turning it into a dynamic defence mechanism.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a technological marvel; it has become a transformative force reshaping how trust is understood and managed in cyber resilience. While AI permeates global executive agendas, one of its most profound and less-discussed impacts is its role in fundamentally altering trust dynamics for individuals and businesses alike. What was once governed by human intuition and instinct is now quantified, tested, and analysed through machine intelligence, creating a new battlefield where trust itself becomes both the prize and the vulnerability.

Insight from Palo Alto Networks’ 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report: Social Engineering Edition underscores this shift, revealing that 36% of all cyber incidents still begin with social engineering tactics. Despite advances in onboarding sophisticated AI-driven defences, cybercriminals exploit the weakest element in security chains: humans. Social engineering attacks are deeply effective because they thrive in everyday moments where routine interaction breeds complacency, and attackers mask manipulation under the guise of trust. With 65% of these attacks leveraging phishing and 66% specifically targeting privileged accounts, threat actors are increasingly adept at mimicking legitimate colleagues and embedding into ongoing workflows, making detection challenging.

The evolving attack landscape demonstrates a disturbing adaptability. Each failed attempt educates AI-powered adversaries on human behavioural responses, allowing them to escalate quickly, sometimes reaching domain administrator privileges within 40 minutes without deploying malware. Attackers employ multi-layered tactics including malvertising, smishing, and multi-factor authentication (MFA) bombing, designed to overwhelm vigilance and exploit gaps created by alert fatigue, with 13% of social engineering breaches linked to missed or misclassified critical alerts. Consequently, organisations must shift focus from purely technical controls to behavioural detection strategies that can identify subtle deviations signalling potential compromise.

On the defence front, AI serves as an indispensable ally. Emerging behavioural analytics tools harness machine intelligence to detect the nuanced anomalies human analysts cannot spot unaided. These systems establish comprehensive behavioural baselines, encompassing communication tone, login patterns, and collaboration habits, and continuously monitor for inconsistencies that indicate deception or impersonation. By integrating AI-driven verification processes behind every trust interaction and access event, organisations move from a reactive stance to one of anticipation, identifying early compromise signs even without visible technical exploits.

This shift heralds a governance transformation, where trust transitions from an assumed virtue to a measurable, auditable operational asset. Enterprises embrace a “trust governance” mindset, extending zero-trust principles beyond mere networks and devices to include human behaviours, processes, and AI systems. Continuous risk assessment of roles and relationships aligned with real-time context ensures that trust is fluid and revocable, not static or implicit. Such an approach fosters a living security fabric adaptive to emergent threats, turning trust from a liability into a robust defensive mechanism.

The current cyber threat landscape is increasingly dominated by faster, more complex attacks bolstered by generative AI and advanced cloud strategies. Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 Incident Response team reported responding to over 500 attacks in 2024, with 86% directly impacting business operations. These figures highlight the urgency for organisations to implement rapid detection and response capabilities, supported by comprehensive security strategies that include AI-powered behavioural analytics and trust governance frameworks.

In essence, the battle for cyber resilience now centres on managing trust intelligently and continuously. AI, while enabling more sophisticated attacks, simultaneously equips defenders to act decisively and with greater precision. As organisations adopt AI-driven tools to surface deceptive behaviours and embed verification into every layer of interaction, they redefine resilience. Trust becomes not just a target for exploitation but a dynamic defence mechanism evolving in real time, essential for securing the digital future.

📌 Reference Map:

^[1] (TechRadar) - Paragraphs 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
^[2]^[7] (Palo Alto Networks Incident Response Report) - Paragraphs 2, 3, 5
^[4] (Palo Alto Networks Incident Response Report) - Paragraph 6
^[5] (Palo Alto Networks Report on AI-assisted attacks) - Paragraph 4

Source: Noah Wire Services

More on this

https://www.techradar.com/pro/the-war-on-trust-how-ai-is-rewriting-the-rules-of-cyber-resilience - Please view link - unable to able to access data
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/resources/research/unit-42-incident-response-report-social-engineering-edition - Palo Alto Networks' 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report: Social Engineering Edition reveals that 36% of cyber incidents begin with social engineering tactics, highlighting the human element as a primary entry point for cybercriminals. The report also notes that 65% of social engineering attacks use phishing tactics, with 66% targeting privileged accounts and 45% impersonating internal personnel. These findings underscore the need for organizations to strengthen their defenses against social engineering attacks, which often exploit trust and human vulnerabilities.
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/2025/07/social-engineering-rise-new-unit-42-report/ - Palo Alto Networks' 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report: Social Engineering Edition highlights the increasing prevalence of social engineering attacks, with over a third of all incidents beginning with such tactics. The report emphasizes the need for organizations to strengthen their defenses against social engineering attacks, which often exploit trust and human vulnerabilities.
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/resources/research/unit-42-incident-response-report - Palo Alto Networks' 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report reveals a shifting threat landscape marked by faster, more complex attacks. In 2024, the Unit 42 Incident Response team responded to over 500 cyberattacks, 86% of which caused direct business impact. Threat actors increasingly targeted multiple attack surfaces, leveraging generative AI and advanced cloud tactics. The message is clear: To combat these rising threats, organizations must prioritize rapid detection, response, and comprehensive security strategies.
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/resources/research/2022-unit42-incident-response-report - Palo Alto Networks' 2022 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report highlights the impact of AI-assisted attacks on the speed and efficiency of cyberattacks. The report demonstrates that tasks that traditionally took days or weeks can now be completed in minutes, emphasizing the need for organizations to deploy AI-driven detection to spot malicious patterns at machine speed and to train staff to recognize AI-generated phishing and targeted social engineering attempts.
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/2025/07/social-engineering-rise-new-unit-42-report/ - Palo Alto Networks' 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report: Social Engineering Edition highlights the increasing prevalence of social engineering attacks, with over a third of all incidents beginning with such tactics. The report emphasizes the need for organizations to strengthen their defenses against social engineering attacks, which often exploit trust and human vulnerabilities.
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/resources/research/unit-42-incident-response-report-social-engineering-edition - Palo Alto Networks' 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report: Social Engineering Edition reveals that 36% of cyber incidents begin with social engineering tactics, highlighting the human element as a primary entry point for cybercriminals. The report also notes that 65% of social engineering attacks use phishing tactics, with 66% targeting privileged accounts and 45% impersonating internal personnel. These findings underscore the need for organizations to strengthen their defenses against social engineering attacks, which often exploit trust and human vulnerabilities.

Noah Fact Check Pro

The draft above was created using the information available at the time the story first emerged. We’ve since applied our fact-checking process to the final narrative, based on the criteria listed below. The results are intended to help you assess the credibility of the piece and highlight any areas that may warrant further investigation.

Freshness check

Score: 10

Notes: The narrative is recent, published on 27 November 2025, and discusses the latest findings from the 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report: Social Engineering Edition, released four months prior. ([unit42.paloaltonetworks.com](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/2025-unit-42-global-incident-response-report-social-engineering-edition/?utm_source=openai))

Quotes check

Score: 10

Notes: The article includes direct quotes from the 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report: Social Engineering Edition, which is the primary source. ([unit42.paloaltonetworks.com](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/2025-unit-42-global-incident-response-report-social-engineering-edition/?utm_source=openai))

Source reliability

Score: 10

Notes: The narrative originates from TechRadar, a reputable technology news outlet, and references the 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report: Social Engineering Edition by Palo Alto Networks, a credible cybersecurity firm. ([unit42.paloaltonetworks.com](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/2025-unit-42-global-incident-response-report-social-engineering-edition/?utm_source=openai))

Plausability check

Score: 10

Notes: The claims align with known trends in cybersecurity, particularly the increasing role of AI in cyber resilience. The statistics cited, such as 36% of cyber incidents beginning with social engineering, are consistent with findings from the 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report: Social Engineering Edition. ([unit42.paloaltonetworks.com](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/2025-unit-42-global-incident-response-report-social-engineering-edition/?utm_source=openai))

Overall assessment

Verdict (FAIL, OPEN, PASS): PASS

Confidence (LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH): HIGH

Summary: The narrative is recent, directly cites a reputable source, and presents plausible claims consistent with current cybersecurity trends.

Cybersecurity
Artificial Intelligence
Trust governance