CultureAI launches new human threat framework

Designed by top security researchers, the CultureAI Human Threat Map helps organisations identify threats, understand risky user behaviours, and deploy proactive interventions.

Through the Human Threat Map, which is organised into a MITRE-style layout, security teams, CISOs, and risk professionals can build an intelligent, adaptive security strategy. Currently covering over 80 threat types and more than 100 risky user behaviours, the Human Threat Map allows organisations to identify and address human-centric threats before they cause damage—protecting employees from attacks they can’t anticipate or defend against.

The launch comes at a time when attackers are increasingly targeting employees directly. Advances in AI and the geopolitical landscape have driven more frequent and sophisticated exploitation of human security mistakes. Security teams are also relying on traditional training methods that do not prevent human risks from being created and leverage siloed tools that lack human context and generate false positives. As a result, human error remains the leading cause of cyber incidents and tactics, like AI-powered phishing, deepfake social engineering, and behavioural manipulation, make it nearly impossible for users to recognise or stop every attack. The 2025 CrowdStrike Global Threat Report found that 79% of detected attacks in 2024 were malware-free—suggesting a clear shift towards exploiting humans.

James Moore, founder and CEO of CultureAI says: “Threat actors are evolving rapidly, exposing more vulnerabilities through the modern workforce. Yet, many organisations still rely heavily on outdated methods, such as annual training, which shifts the security burden onto employees and fails to reduce the breaches caused by human error. This approach is no longer enough. The industry needs a new mindset—one that proactively manages human risk in real time.”

Building new defences with the Human Threat Map.

The Human Threat Map provides organisations with continuous visibility and actionable insights, enabling them to build a stronger, more resilient defence for today’s ever-changing threat landscape.

The map is broken into nine categories - Recon, Initial Access, Persistence, Defence Evasion, Credential Access, Discovery, Collection, and Impact – which can be expanded to show their respective threats.

It can also be changed to organise threats into specific security domains, including Identity, MFA, Phishing, Data Security, Endpoint Security, SaaS, MDM, Hardware Management, Artificial Intelligence, Encryption, and Instant Messaging. This view allows security teams to focus on threats that are relevant to their organisation.

Each threat on the map has its own tile, which features an overview of the threat, examples, human behaviours and risks that enable it, making it a practical tool for security teams to develop targeted defences.

“We wanted to create a framework that provided organisations with a clear view of the human-centric cyber threats affecting them to help them understand the techniques that can mitigate the risks”, Oliver Simonnet, Lead Cybersecurity Researcher at CultureAI added. “For too long, security professionals have failed to consider the human role in threats, and we wanted to recontextualise the traditional threat frameworks to put people at the heart of the solution.”

Mitigating Risks

With an example breach in mind, security teams can use the Human Threat Map to understand and then defend against such attacks:

Identifying known threats – Using the Human Threat Map, organisations can trace each phase of the incident back to its corresponding threat category.

Understanding the risky human behaviour – Once the threat itself is understood, the next step is analysing the human behaviour that enabled it, which is outlined on the threat tile.

Deploying interventions - Once they have identified the relevant risk behaviours, organisations can then deploy interventions tailored to the audience, triggers and specific risk scenarios through Human Risk Management platforms like CultureAI.