- Conan O’Brien stars in a new series of cybersecurity training videos
- Adaptive combines comedy and security awareness for corporate employees
- AI Scams Are Increasingly Harder for Workers to Identify
Cybersecurity awareness programs have struggled with a persistent problem for years: Employees often treat mandatory training sessions as routine box-ticking exercises.
Adaptive Security is trying a different approach by bringing iconic talk show host Conan O’Brien into a new training initiative focused on modern digital threats.
The New York-based company has produced a 15-part educational series starring O’Brien to help corporate users understand growing online security risks.
Cybersecurity education takes on a celebrity face
The videos examine topics including phishing attacks, phishing attempts, voice cloning schemes, deepfakes, and other forms of fraud associated with artificial intelligence technologies.
According to the company, each episode begins with a comedy segment related to the topic being discussed before moving into educational material.
The production involved collaboration between Adaptive Security employees and staff at Team Coco, the media company associated with O’Brien’s entertainment projects.
Adaptive said the series will be available to enterprise customers using its cybersecurity training and awareness products.
In addition to the celebrity-led content, the company is also releasing additional educational videos that do not feature O’Brien.
“I partnered with Adaptive Security just to find out what these kids are doing. Turns out it’s pretty cool,” O’Brien said in a statement.
The partnership reportedly came about after company employees expressed appreciation for some of O’Brien’s long-running comedy sketches and recurring television segments.
However, rather than focusing on entertainment audiences, the training material is intended for employees facing complex workplace safety challenges.
AI fraud is raising new concerns
Adaptive Security was founded in 2024 and develops products aimed at helping organizations recognize and respond to cyber threats.
Its offerings include security awareness courses, phishing simulations, and other services supported by a combination of proprietary and publicly available artificial intelligence models.
Company executives maintain that the threat landscape has changed significantly as generative AI tools become more available.
According to Adaptive product manager Andrew Jones, attacks have become more sophisticated and frequent.
“There really is a before and after,” Jones said while discussing the growing influence of AI on cybercrime activity.
“There’s before, which was before AI, and then there’s after, which is after AI, and after AI, these attacks have become much more sophisticated.”
He added that companies need clear strategies because emerging technologies make fraud campaigns increasingly difficult to detect and counter.
Industry forecasts frequently cited by cybersecurity companies suggest that financial losses related to AI-enabled fraud may continue to increase over the next few years.
Adaptive points to these projections as evidence of increasing risks and argues that better training can help organizations reduce their exposure.
The company has attracted significant investor backing, raising more than $140 million in multiple funding rounds involving prominent technology investors.
This financial support reflects broader interest in cybersecurity products as organizations face increasing pressure to strengthen employee awareness programs.
For many companies, the challenge goes beyond producing training materials and involves keeping employees engaged during these sessions.
Via variety
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds.
