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Articles by Anna Collard
Crime or Career? What Young People Told Us About Cybercrime Recruitment
"Someone online shows a 'trick' that feels harmless at first. Then the community pulls you in. Everyone's doing it. It feels like skill, not crime." A young person from South Africa, describing how their peers slide into cybercrime. The above was a quote from a young South African responder to our survey on cybercrime perceptions. Notice what's missing: there is no villain, underground or dark web. Just a skill, a community and a sense of finally being good at something.
The one thing scammers still struggle to fake
South Africa’s many languages could give you an unexpected weapon against increasingly sophisticated scams - but it may not work forever. Don't trust caller ID - scammers can spoof the number displayed on your phone. Image: Canva LIFESTYLE NEWS - The next scam message that lands on your phone could look completely legitimate. It may have your name, your bank’s logo, the correct spelling and even details about where you live or a parcel you are expecting.
SA languages make a great scam detector
Photo courtesy KnowBe4 Africa. The next scam message to reach your phone will be spelled correctly, carry your bank’s real logo, your name, and possibly the correct suburb a parcel for you might need to reach. Nothing about it will look wrong. It will also, almost certainly, be in English. That is not, on its own, a tell. English is the language of South African banking, employment and officialdom, and a large share of the population reads it comfortably regardless of what they speak at home.
KI-Governance für autonome Agenten
Und das verändert die Natur des Risikos. KI-Agenten planen, führen aus und interagieren im Namen echter Menschen mit der Welt. Sie versenden E-Mails, übertragen Daten, lösen Prozesse aus und agieren zunehmend systemübergreifend ohne menschliches Eingreifen. Bislang war das Risiko durch menschliche Grenzen begrenzt. Selbst wenn die KI Fehler machte, musste immer noch ein Mensch zunächst darauf reagieren und zumeist waren die Folgen eher harmlos.
When AI agents go rogue, the law doesn't disappear
The multiple recent reports of autonomous AI systems escaping their intended boundaries and accessing external organizations' systems have pushed a previously theoretical question into the real world. AI agents going rogue is no longer a prospect; it is a documented reality.
95 000 reports in one year: How South African parents can protect daughters in the AI age
From deepfakes and AI-generated abuse to digital sextortion and fake profiles, children are facing online threats that previous generations never had to navigate. Experts say digital resilience, open communication and good judgement are essential. The digital threats are already here. Parents can adapt, just as previous generations adapted to new risks.
The Talent Pipeline Nobody Talks About: What Young People Told Us About Cybercrime
"Someone online shows them a 'trick' that feels harmless at first. Then the community pulls them in. Everyone's doing it. It feels like skill, not crime." That's a young person from South Africa, describing how their peers slide into cybercrime. Notice what's missing: no villain, no dark web, no hoodie. Just a skill, a community and a sense of finally being good at something.
Why You Can’t Arrest Your Way Out of Youth Cybercrime
Two days at INTERPOL on youth cybercrime, why offender prevention is real police work and why it has to out-recruit rather than out-threaten. Sir Robert Peel defined good policing as "the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them." Gregory Francis of the Netherlands National Police quoted this at the INTERCOP conference held at INTERPOL headquarters, and this principle framed the entire event.
CyberheistNews Vol 16 #27 [HOW TO] Your Cybersecurity Starts at Home on World Social Media Day | #hacking | #cybersecurity | #infosec | #comptia | #pentest | #ransomware
CyberheistNews Vol 16 #27 | July 7th, 2026 [HOW TO] Your Cybersecurity Starts at Home on World Social Media Day By Anna Collard Remember when “social media safety” meant advising employees not to post pictures of their security badges or laptop screens? Back then, corporate risk and personal scrolling felt like two entirely separate worlds. Today, that boundary has completely dissolved.
How ‘TikTok Brain’ is breaking legacy security training
printer friendly version How ‘TikTok Brain’ is breaking legacy security training Between doomscrolling, rapid-fire Slack notifications, and algorithmic video feeds, the average employee is trapped in an aggressive, highly engineered dopamine loop. Because of the mobile revolution and social media, the human brain has adapted to filter out boring, repetitive, or non-engaging stimuli faster than ever before.
Why Bite-Sized Security Awareness Training Matters in an Age of TikTok and Digital Distraction
In cybersecurity, attention has become one of our most valuable resources. Modern digital habits have fundamentally changed how we consume information, giving rise to "TikTok Brain." An environment of constant notifications, endless content streams and competing demands on our focus, has changed how we consume information and, more importantly, how we make decisions. Threat actors understand this shift perfectly.
AI is secretly disenfranchising the youth who use it ‘best’ – cognitively and economically Original
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Anna Collard|Published 12 minutes ago AIFifty years after South Africa's youth fought for educational rights, a new battle looms: the silent surrender of critical thinking to artificial intelligence. Are we sacrificing our youth's cognitive agency? Image: Supplied In 1976, South Africa’s youth took to the streets to claim educational agency and the hard-won right to self-determination.
Cybersecurity Starts At Home This World Social Media Day
Secure the Digital Workforce: Human + AI KnowBe4 empowers the modern workforce to make smarter security decisions every day. Trusted by more than 70,000 organizations worldwide, KnowBe4 is the pioneer of digital workforce security, securing both AI agents and humans. The KnowBe4 Platform provides attack simulation and training, collaboration security, and agent security powered by AIDA (Artificial Intelligence Defense Agents) and a proprietary Risk Score.
AI is secretly disenfranchising the youth who use it ‘best’ - cognitively and economically
Cape Times | June 30, 2026 IN 1976, South Africa’s youth took to the streets to claim educational agency and the hard-won right to self-determination. Fifty years later, our young digital natives face a quieter, subtler crisis: the gradual surrender of that very critical reasoning and agency to artificial intelligence.
Is TikTok rewiring our brains? Original
Anna Collard|Published 9 minutes ago Explore how the rapid-fire nature of social media, particularly TikTok, is reshaping our cognitive responses and impacting cybersecurity training. Discover innovative strategies to combat digital distractions and enhance employee awareness. Image: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via AFP Between doom-scrolling, rapid-fire Slack notifications, and algorithmic video feeds, the average employee is trapped in an aggressive, highly engineered dopamine loop.
AI undermining young peoples development
From 1976 to 2026: AI is secretly disenfranchising the youth who use it ‘best’ – cognitively and economically Because AI delivers information with absolute confidence, the recommendations are easily accepted as fact. Image: Canva LIFESTYLE NEWS - In 1976, South Africa’s youth took to the streets to claim educational agency and the hard-won right to self-determination.
Why prompt injection is becoming the new phishing
In biology, a virus does not always destroy a cell from the outside. Instead, it injects genetic instructions into the host. It then hijacks the cell’s internal machinery. This process produces more viruses. In the digital world, prompt injection follows a similar logic. It operates with stealth and precision. As organisations adopt AI agents for critical functions, attackers shift focus. They no longer only hack code. Instead, they also hack the instructions that govern systems.
How ‘TikTok Brain’ is breaking legacy security training
By Anna Collard, CISO advisor and SVP content strategist at KnowBe4 Between doom-scrolling, rapid-fire Slack notifications, and algorithmic video feeds, the average employee is trapped in an aggressive, highly engineered dopamine loop. Because of the mobile revolution and social media, the human brain has adapted to filter out boring, repetitive, or non-engaging stimuli faster than ever before.
The New Frontier: Securing Japan’s Hybrid Digital Workforce (2026 & Beyond)
Secure the Digital Workforce: Human + AI KnowBe4 empowers the modern workforce to make smarter security decisions every day. Trusted by more than 70,000 organizations worldwide, KnowBe4 is the pioneer of digital workforce security, securing both AI agents and humans. The KnowBe4 Platform provides attack simulation and training, collaboration security, and agent security powered by AIDA (Artificial Intelligence Defense Agents) and a proprietary Risk Score.
AI Agent Governance Part 3 - Runtime Governance: The Hidden Performance Cost of Agentic AI
At the World Economic Forum cyber meeting in Geneva recently, I had an interesting conversation with Vinh Nguyen, who is a strategic security advisor and Senior Fellow for AI at CFR. I wanted to know from him how he sees runtime governance in agentic AI working out practically and what approaches actually work. One of the challenges he mentioned was that yes, we need runtime governance to provide continuous and real time assurance that agents are doing what they are supposed to be doing.
AI Agent Governance Part 2 - What Good Looks Like: Governing AI Agents in Practice
If AI agents are becoming organizational actors, then governance needs to move beyond principles and into operational structure. In Camille Stewart Gloster’s upcoming book The Insider You Build, she explains that governance is not defined by policies or structures, but by whether it can actually influence system behavior at runtime. In an agentic environment, governance only exists where it can shape, constrain, and intervene in decisions as they happen.
AI Agent Governance Part 1 - Beyond the Chatbot: Mastering AI Agent Governance
In 2024, we talked to AI. In 2026, AI is talking to our systems, our customers, and increasingly, acting on our behalf. With AI agents, we are moving AI from a tool to an actor, from assistance to agency and from outputs to actions. And that changes the nature of risk. AI agents plan, execute, and interact with the world on our behalf. They send emails, move data, trigger workflows, and increasingly operate across systems without human intervention.
From Cyberwar to Cognitive Warfare: The Geopolitical Impact on Cybersecurity in Africa
We’ve long defined cybersecurity as the technical discipline of protecting networks, data and systems. But when viewed through a geopolitical lens, then this definition is no longer sufficient. What we are dealing with today goes beyond protecting organisational data, to protecting economies, sovereignty, and increasingly, human perception.
Artificial Intelligence is acting like an employee, without the rules Original
Anna Collard|Published 9 minutes ago Discover how a 1979 IBM warning about AI accountability is more relevant than ever as businesses increasingly rely on autonomous systems for management decisions. Explore the risks and legal implications of letting machines take charge. Image: AI / Sora A warning from 1979 on corporate accountability for ‘rogue’ AIs, and what we need to do about it.
AI is interacting with the real world. What does this mean for cybersecurity?
As AI systems begin to act in the physical world, cyber failures become physical failures that can directly affect human safety, operations and trust. With cybersecurity stakes rising as a result, we are scaling autonomy and capability faster than scaling the safety foundations they rest on. Physical AI adoption will depend on secure-by-design systems, harmonized standards and greater investment in safety and resilience.
Africa on the Frontline: Cybersecurity, Geopolitics and why Security is Moving from Systems to Human Minds
We’ve long defined cybersecurity as the technical discipline of protecting networks, data and systems. But when viewed through a geopolitical lens, then this definition is no longer sufficient. What we are dealing with today goes beyond protecting organisational data, to protecting economies, sovereignty, and increasingly, human perception. I’ve recently participated in a webinar hosted by the Cyber Threat Alliance on the topic of geopolitics and its impact on global cybersecurity.
Vorsätze für die Cybersicherheit in 2026
Zu Jahresbeginn gilt es für digitale Sicherheitsteams und ihre Führungskräfte sich auf die Faktoren zu besinnen, welche für das Gelingen ihrer Sicherheitsstrategie für das kommende Jahr am wichtigsten sind. Einer dieser Faktoren, wenn nicht sogar der wichtigste, ist der Mensch. Jedes Jahr wieder liefert das Weltwirtschaftsforum in Davos einen Einblick in das, was Führungskräfte aus aller Welt im Herzen tragen. Zusammengefasst wird dies unter anderem im Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026.
Digital Cleanup: It’s Not Just Your Files, It’s Your Brain
Digital Cleanup Day might be seen as a digital chore: delete old files, clear the inbox, reduce your carbon footprint. It’s framed as a technical exercise. But digital cleanup isn't only about your hard drive; it’s also about your mind. We are currently drowning in "Digital Toxicity" vast amounts of redundant, obsolete, and trivial data. This isn't just a storage issue. It’s a security crisis. Why? Because you cannot protect data you don’t remember you have.
From Phishing to AI Agents: Can We Design for Digital Mindfulness?
Anyone who knows me knows I’m passionate about mindfulness. Because I genuinely believe it makes us better humans. But also, because I have one of those brains that desperately needs it. I’m easily distracted and I start new ideas before finishing old ones. My attention can scatter in a hundred directions. I wrote before how I clicked on a phishing test because I was multitasking and running on autopilot. And that moment really changed the direction of my career and my research.
Women in STEM fields are still too few - and why it's fuelling cyber risks
The celebration of is a good time to reflect on why women remain woefully underrepresented in science and technology, despite a staggering shortage of these skills in South Africa. In cybersecurity specifically, a lack of diversity creates blind spots that organisations can no longer afford in an era of sophisticated cyber warfare. According to StatsSA, .
Starting the Year with Cyber Intention: Human-Centric Insights from the Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026
One of my first intentional “to-dos” this year has been spending time with the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026, a report I was privileged to actively contribute to over the past year. For KnowBe4 customers, this report offers more than trend analysis. It provides a baseline of where organizations stand today, what separates resilient organizations from less resilient ones, and why the human factor is now central to cyber resilience.
Trust Is The New Currency Of The Digital Economy
Recently, the conversation around cybersecurity has changed. It’s no longer confined to the CTO or CIO’s office – it has become a leading item in the executive boardroom. The reason for this pivot is that executives now see cybersecurity for what it truly is: a visible, prominent business risk with real-life financial and reputational consequences. Failing to prepare for cyber threats can result in significant reputational and financial losses if customer-facing or internal systems are compromised.
The festive season's uninvited guest is AI-powered and targeting your phone
The end-of-year fatigue is a biological reality that cybercriminals bank on. While December is traditionally associated with winding down, for the digital underworld, it is the busiest quarter of the year. The combination of high transaction volumes, skeleton crews at the office, and a collective psychological state of distraction creates the perfect storm for social engineering. This year, however, the threat landscape has shifted yet again.
Digital detoxing: And why a longer exhale can make you safer online
Many of us pride ourselves on being constantly connected and responsive, but that same ‘always-on’ mindset often makes us more vulnerable to serious cyber risks. While we view December as a time for mental recovery, it is also a critical opportunity to reset the bad habits – rushing, multitasking, and reflexive clicking – that lead to increasingly damaging security incidents.
Why criminals wait for the A-Team to leave
As the festive season approaches, many organisations either shut down or operate on skeleton crews. While executives and key employees in departments like IT, finance and security are enjoying a well-earned break, cybercriminals are ramping up their activity. In fact, industry data shows that ransomware attacks spike by around 30% during the holiday period.
The bystander effect around corporate emails: Why 'delete' is the enemy of defence
In the second quarter of this year alone, organisations were hit with close to one million phishing attempts. As these attacks become more sophisticated, organisations are deploying advanced automated defences to hold the line. Yet, despite these investments, a critical gap remains in the human layer of security. It is not a lack of awareness, but a specific behavioural habit: the tendency to simply hit “delete”, says Anna Collard, SVP of Content Strategy & CISO Advisor at KnowBe4 Africa.
Cluttered desktops: The ‘I might need this someday’ mindset is creating a cybersecurity nightmare
Like a garage slowly filling with forgotten boxes, our digital workspaces are becoming repositories of unmanaged data. We are all familiar with cluttered desktops, full inboxes, and personal files saved on work devices. This is digital hoarding – the compulsive accumulation and retention of digital assets beyond their useful life or business need.
Heritage, identity, and the risk of digital mimicry
Anna Collard|Published 19 minutes ago 3min Learn how to celebrate your heritage while safeguarding your digital identity against cybercriminals. Image: File photo. As South Africans recently celebrated a day of communal braais and shared national pride, our digital lives inevitably mirrored our physical ones. We posted family photos, shared traditions, and celebrated our diverse cultures online.
Heritage, identity, and the risk of digital mimicry Original
Anna Collard|Published 4 hours ago Learn how to celebrate your heritage while safeguarding your digital identity against cybercriminals. Image: File photo. As South Africans recently celebrated a day of communal braais and shared national pride, our digital lives inevitably mirrored our physical ones. We posted family photos, shared traditions, and celebrated our diverse cultures online.
Building security into India's digital public infrastructure
India's digital public infrastructure (DPI) serves over 1.3 billion citizens and processes more than 10 billion monthly transactions. It enables direct access to services for millions of people and creates significant savings for the government. India’s DPI journey involved addressing critical security and privacy challenges, providing essential lessons for other countries. Digital public infrastructure (DPI) is the digital equivalent of highways, railways and utility grids.
How AI companions are rewriting digital addiction in schools and homes
Social media is addictive – endless scrolls, dopamine hits and fear of missing out. But a new dependency is rising: AI chatbots. Far from neutral helpers, tools like ChatGPT, Character.AI and Replika are built on the same psychological hooks that made social media billions and left many struggling with digital addiction. Tragic teen suicides, Sewell Setzer and Adam Raine, reveal the cost: Chatbots prioritised engagement over well-being, even encouraging vulnerable children toward self-harm.
The hidden dependency crisis: How AI chatbots hook children
The tragic suicides of teenagers Sewell Setzer and Adam Raine have exposed a disturbing new reality: artificial intelligence chatbots are creating dependencies in children that can have deadly consequences. Far from being neutral digital helpers, AI platforms like ChatGPT, Character.AI, and Replika employ the same psychological hooks that made social media billions while leaving many struggling with digital addiction.
Guest Post - Bringing the Human Back into Cybersecurity: What Values-Based Education Teaches Us About Digital Mindfulness
By Anna Collard, SVP of Content Strategy and Evangelist at KnowBe4 Inda Sahota, Group Cybersecurity Office (GCSO) Cyber Culture & Training – Fresenius Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Inda Sahota, the dynamic and deeply empathetic force behind cybersecurity awareness at Fresenius Group. What struck me most wasn’t just her deep understanding of human-centric security, it was how naturally she bridges the gap between personal values and professional practice.
The rise of the “shadow employee”: When ex-employees still have access
Imagine a marketing manager who left a company six months ago, taking their personal laptop with them. On it, unbeknownst to anyone, was a cached login to a shared cloud drive containing sensitive client proposals and campaign strategies – access that was simply overlooked during offboarding. Months later, the ex-employee accidentally drags a folder from that shared drive onto a public-facing personal cloud storage, thinking it was their own.
When WhatsApp groups become serious cyber-risk zones
Despite their popularity among employees, informal messaging platforms pose significant risks to organisations’ cybersecurity. The 2025 KnowBe4 Africa Annual Cybersecurity survey found that 93% of African respondents use WhatsApp for work communications, surpassing email and Microsoft Teams. What can organisations do to protect themselves from data leakage and other threats? For many organisations, platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram have become integral to workplace communication.
Retailers under cyberattack - Issue 3 2025 - SMART Security Solutions
printer friendly version Retailers under cyberattack Recent cyberattacks on major UK retailers like Marks & Spencer and the Co-op are not just headline-grabbing stories; they provide a cautionary tale of the evolving threat landscape facing modern retail globally. For African retailers accelerating digital transformation, these incidents serve as a crucial case study in what can go wrong when uptime, not just data, is under attack.
Why Empowered People Are the Real Cyber Superpower – Not a Liability - Ai Impact
It’s time to retire the tired narrative that employees are the “weakest link” in cybersecurity. They’re not. They’re simply the most frequently targeted. And that makes sense – if you’re a cybercriminal, why brute-force your way into secure systems when you can just trick a human? And that is why over-relying on technical controls only goes wrong. So is treating users like liabilities to be controlled, rather than assets to be empowered.
Are AI agents a game-changer?
printer friendly version Are AI agents a game-changer? AI is transforming cybercrime, making attacks more scalable, efficient, and accessible. The WEF Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity Report (2025)1 highlights how AI has democratised cyberthreats, enabling attackers to automate social engineering, expand phishing campaigns, and develop AI-driven malware.
Social engineering 2.0: When artificial intelligence becomes the ultimate manipulator
Once the domain of elite spies and con artists, social engineering is now in the hands of anyone with an internet connection – and AI is the accomplice. Supercharged by generative tools and deepfake technology, today’s social engineering attacks are no longer sloppy phishing attempts. They’re targeted, psychologically precise, and frighteningly scalable. Welcome to Social Engineering 2.0, where the manipulators don’t need to know you personally. Their AI already does.
How to prevent leaking sensitive company data in generative AI
Seemingly benign details can be stitched into detailed profiles by cybercriminals or data brokers – fuelling targeted phishing, identity theft, and sophisticated social engineering Beneath the surface of GenAI’s outputs lies a massive, mostly unregulated engine powered by data – your data. And whether it’s through innocent prompts or habitual oversharing, users are feeding these machines with information that, in the wrong hands, becomes a security time bomb.
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