Ruud Kessels

Humans as crucial partners in cybersecurity & resilience

The core message of the session is that organizations should stop treating employees primarily as cybersecurity’s “weakest link” and instead bring them into the shared mission of cyber resilience. After introducing Verena’s earlier argument that humans do not need to be framed as the problem, the moderator welcomed Remco Spithoven of Saxion University of Applied Sciences and the Dutch Cyber Resilience Expertise Network, alongside Ruud Kessels of Rabobank. Remco opened by connecting the “human as a solution” approach to cyber resilience, arguing that the mindset shift is not just about nicer language but about preparing organizations for a threat landscape in which they will likely be hit and will need people’s help to keep functioning and recover.