As official media partners of Infosecurity Europe, the EM360Tech team attended the event on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, to interview IT leadership from across the cybersecurity industry.
In this vox pop, Shubhangi Dua, Podcast Host and Tech Journalist at EM360Tech, interviews Jon Abbott, CEO of ThreatAware. They talk about how the industry often focuses too much on blaming the user or solely on phishing, which is considered too simplistic.
Instead, Abbott makes a case for a return to fundamentals—such as utilising web proxies and EDR everywhere—to prevent various types of attacks, including those powered by AI.
“You really got to look back at those controls and appreciate you could have a web proxy or make sure you have Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) everywhere instead of blaming the user for clicking links.”
Focusing on the fundamentals will help prevent all manner of such attacks as well as prevent users from taking the wrong action, especially against AI-powered attacks.
A challenge Abbott foresees in cybersecurity is shadow AI. There seems to be a noted cultural shift where businesses are now willing to grant AI tools access to sensitive systems (like Microsoft 365) in ways they would have previously rejected, which could lead to significant attacks in the next 12 months.
“When you tag the action with AI now, it seems to be acceptable,” Abbott expressed. “People are connecting their Claw to an AI or granting access to OpenAI to take actions on your behalf.”
“When you consider open claw, it’s going to be interesting to see how it evolves in the Agentic AI space.”
Abbott was also the keynote speaker on Tuesday [June 2] at Infosec this year. He presented the talk with Doug Weekes, CISO and Director of Data Governance, Sainsbury’s, on: The Hygiene Gap: How Simple Failures Enable Sophisticated Attacks.
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