The Psychology Of Trust In Cybersecurity: It's Not Paranoia, It's Prudence
Zscaler, Thursday, September 4th, 2025
An innate trust in what's familiar is a very human response. In the workplace, it's almost a given that colleagues, internal systems, and corporate networks are all trustworthy.
But in today's 'everything-and-everyone-connects-from-everywhere' world, this instinct can be dangerously misleading. The enterprise network is the most vulnerable it's ever been-not only because cloud-first hybrid environments have vastly expanded the attack surface.
There are three other reasons we're experiencing heightened vulnerability. First, there's the greater chance of compromise as hackers are turning to AI to launch increasingly sophisticated social engineering campaigns. Second is how easy it is for a bad actor to move laterally through the network, unmonitored, using verified credentials to log in (not hack in!). Finally, there's the danger to data: the alarming rise of ransomware or of data exfiltration (without any alarms being triggered).