Five cybersecurity experts join Living Security's turnkey Cybersecurity Awareness Month program to help employees navigate AI-driven deception, digital trust, and human risk
AUSTIN, TX / ACCESS Newswire / August 20, 2026 / Living Security, the global leader in Human Risk Management (HRM), today announced the featured speaker lineup for its 2026 Cybersecurity Awareness Month program, bringing together five experts whose careers span cybercrime prosecution, intelligence operations, online safety advocacy, insider threats, and human behavior risk.
The speakers are part of Living Security's turnkey Cybersecurity Awareness Month offering, designed to give security awareness teams the expert-led programming, interactive experiences, ready-to-launch campaign content, employee communications, and planning resources needed to run an engaging October campaign.
Built around the theme Navigating Trust in an AI World, this year's Cybersecurity Awareness Month program explores one of the defining security challenges of the AI era: how employees can make informed decisions when deepfakes, voice cloning, synthetic content, misinformation, and increasingly sophisticated social engineering make deception easier to create and harder to detect.
Employees are being asked to evaluate information, verify identities, and make security decisions in situations where traditional signals of trust may no longer be reliable. The 2026 speaker lineup brings those challenges to life through firsthand experiences with cybercrime, espionage, manipulation, insider threats, digital safety, and the human behaviors that can either increase or reduce organizational risk.
"The security challenge facing organizations today isn't simply awareness; it's trust," said Ashley Rose, CEO and Co-Founder of Living Security. "The experts joining this year's program have spent their careers confronting cybercrime, deception, manipulation, insider threats, and online safety challenges. Their experiences bring this year's theme to life and help employees understand how to build trust, verify information, and make better security decisions."
Five Experts on the Front Lines of Trust, Deception, and Human Risk
The 2026 speaker lineup brings together professionals who have spent their careers investigating deception, combating cybercrime, understanding human behavior, and helping organizations navigate risk in an increasingly digital world.
Erin West: The Industrialized Scam Economy and AI-Powered Fraud
Former cybercrime prosecutor and founder of Operation Shamrock, a global coalition of more than 2,400 law enforcement professionals combating transnational organized cybercrime. West became the first prosecutor in the United States to secure a prison sentence for a SIM-swapping criminal and is widely recognized for exposing the industrialized scam economy, including the human trafficking networks and AI-enabled fraud operations fueling today's global scam epidemic.
Caitlin Sarian (@CybersecurityGirl): Digital Trust, Privacy, and Online Safety
Cybersecurity, privacy, and digital safety expert who previously led TikTok's Global Cybersecurity Advocacy & Culture team. Through her @CybersecurityGirl platform, Sarian educates more than 3 million followers on cybersecurity and online safety, helping individuals and families navigate digital risks. She was recognized as Cybersecurity Woman of the Year in both 2024 and 2025.
Shawnee Delaney: Espionage, Insider Threats, and Human Behavior Risk
Former Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence officer with four combat-zone deployments and founder of Vaillance Group. Delaney builds enterprise insider-threat programs for companies like Uber and Merck and is a globally recognized authority on espionage, insider threats, influence operations, and the human behaviors that contribute to organizational risk.
Jane Frankland MBE: Leadership, Resilience, and the Future of Cybersecurity
Award-winning cybersecurity entrepreneur, bestselling author, and founder of the IN Security Movement. Frankland advises governments and international organizations on cybersecurity initiatives and has helped fund hundreds of scholarships for women pursuing cybersecurity careers. In 2025, she was awarded an MBE for services to women in cybersecurity.
Alicia Kozak: Online Manipulation, Safety, and Digital Trust
Founder of The Alicia Project and a nationally recognized advocate for online safety education. As the first widely reported survivor of internet-facilitated child abduction and the namesake of Alicia's Law, enacted in 13 states, Kozak has spent more than two decades helping audiences understand the real-world consequences of online manipulation and misplaced trust.
More Than a Speaker Series, A Turnkey Cybersecurity Awareness Month Program
The speaker lineup is one part of Living Security's broader 2026 Cybersecurity Awareness Month program, designed to give security awareness teams everything they need to plan, launch, and run an engaging October campaign without building the program from scratch.
Throughout Cybersecurity Awareness Month, participants will explore topics including:
AI-generated deception and deepfakes
Voice cloning and impersonation attacks
Prompt injection and AI workflow manipulation
Digital trust and verification behaviors
Insider threats and human influence
Online manipulation and misinformation
Human decision-making under uncertainty
Beyond expert keynote speakers, the turnkey program includes interactive and gamified learning experiences, CyberEscape Online team-based virtual escape room experiences, ready-to-launch awareness content, employee communications, campaign and promotional resources, and a structured rollout plan designed to keep employees engaged throughout October.
The program is built to move employees beyond simply knowing about cyber threats toward practicing the behaviors that help reduce risk, questioning unusual requests, verifying information and identities, recognizing manipulation, and making more secure decisions.
For organizations, Cybersecurity Awareness Month can also serve as a starting point for a broader Human Risk Management strategy. By connecting awareness and engagement with behavioral intelligence and measurable risk outcomes, security teams can extend the impact of October beyond a one-month campaign and continue strengthening workforce resilience throughout the year.
Availability
Living Security's 2026 Cybersecurity Awareness Month program is available now for organizations planning October campaigns.
To explore the full speaker lineup and learn more about the program, visit livingsecurity.com/2026-cybersecurity-awareness-month or request a demo to schedule a Human Risk Management strategy session.
About Living Security
Living Security is the global leader in Human Risk Management, helping organizations identify, measure, and reduce human cyber risk across humans and AI agents. Its AI-native Human Risk Management platform combines behavioral, identity, and threat intelligence to predict risk, guide response, and prevent cyber incidents before they occur. By connecting security data to measurable business outcomes, Living Security enables organizations to continuously reduce workforce risk while strengthening organizational resilience.
Media Contact: media@livingsecurity.com
SOURCE: Living Security
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:
https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/computers-technology-and-internet/living-security-announces-2026-cybersecurity-awareness-month-spea-1209870
