Humans remain crucial for cybersecurity even as AI grows more capable
An educator from cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has stated that the role of humans remains very important in ensuring the reliability of cybersecurity, even as artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being implemented to handle the field.
Kaspersky’s Head of Cybersecurity Education and Academic Affairs, Evgeniya Russkikh, said that although AI is now capable of both defending a cybersecurity system and launching attacks, human judgement and critical thinking still play a crucial role.
“As AI becomes increasingly adept at both attacking and defending digital environments, the value of human judgement becomes far more important,” Evgeniya said during the Kaspersky Academy Partners Summit 2026 in Jakarta on Wednesday.
At the event, she said there is currently a global shortage of cybersecurity experts amid the growing implementation of AI to handle cybersecurity.
The state of AI implementation in this field was revealed through a 2025 study by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2).
The study showed that AI has truly transformed the industry landscape in relation to cybersecurity-related work.
Alongside the rising implementation of AI to protect cybersecurity, the threat of cyberattacks by AI is also increasing.
As many as 40 percent of business organisations globally have experienced losses due to cyberattacks caused by AI, ranging from deepfake attacks to identity fraud.
Therefore, the role of humans in cybersecurity remains very important even though AI is now increasingly capable, both in protecting cybersecurity and in creating attacks and becoming a threat.
“If AI models can now launch cyberattacks, then the humans fighting them must understand how those AI models work,” she said.
Discussing the matter in more detail, Evgeniya explained that the Asia Pacific region accounts for 60 percent of the world’s cyber talent gap.
The same study noted that 65 percent of cybersecurity jobs in Southeast Asia require at least three years of work experience, which has become a contributor to the global cyber talent gap.
In light of this, solutions are needed to produce digital talent, particularly in the cybersecurity field, so that this gap can be addressed and AI can be kept under control when implemented in the real world.
To tackle the problem, Evgeniya said that strong collaboration between academia, industry, and policymakers in each country is needed so that the process of producing cybersecurity digital talent can run optimally and address the current gap.
Specifically for the Southeast Asia region, this collaboration is also expected to address the lack of competent cybersecurity instructors to train the younger generation, as well as the limited availability of training materials in each country’s local language.
“Strong collaboration between academia, industry, and the public sector will be essential to build the human resources needed for a resilient digital future,” Evgeniya said.