In a rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape, one truth remains constant: human error is still a leading cause of data breaches. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025, human factors contribute to 74% of breaches, and AI-powered phishing, deepfake, and poisoned search attacks are making attacks more convincing and harder to detect. In fact, the 2025 Netskope Cloud Threat Report found that employees clicked phishing links 190% more than last year, and poisoned search engine results and ads have now become a top attack tactic. As AI tools evolve, attackers are using them to automate, personalize, and disguise phishing and social engineering attacks in ways that even seasoned employees struggle to detect. Organizations—especially in biotech, where sensitive IP and regulated data are prime targets—must update their cybersecurity awareness training for employees to include AI-specific threats and response strategies. Let’s dive into today’s evolving threats and the cybersecurity awareness training strategies that will help your organization stay safe.
The New Reality: AI Is Making Old Attacks Smarter
AI has democratized cybercrime. With generative AI, attackers can create hyper-realistic phishing emails and deepfake videos or voice messages that mimic executives, vendors, or research partners, making social engineering attempts far harder to spot. In fact, one multinational firm lost over $25 million after deepfake video conferencing was used to impersonate its CFO.
At the same time, AI-driven “poisoned search” attacks are quickly turning Google results into phishing risks and backdoors for malware. In these campaigns, threat actors use AI to create legitimate-looking websites that rank high in search results and trick users into downloading malicious content or disclosing information.
“We used to focus awareness training on spotting typos or poor grammar,” explained Josh Nichols, senior IT consultant at Pennant. “But AI has erased those red flags. Now, phishing emails and deepfake videos look and sound exactly like trusted sources. Without new training that helps people recognize AI-driven manipulation cues, even experienced users can be fooled.”
The takeaway for biotech leaders? If your employees are trained to recognize yesterday’s threats but not today’s AI-enhanced ones, it’s time to update your cybersecurity awareness training program.
Why Biotech Companies Are Especially Vulnerable to AI-Driven Social Engineering Attacks
Biotech organizations sit at the intersection of science, intellectual property, and high-value data—all priority attack targets. In addition, biotech organizations also often include hybrid cloud systems, research collaboration platforms, and vendor integrations, all of which expand the attack surface.
AI-enabled phishing and deepfakes are particularly dangerous for biotech because:
Researchers and lab teams frequently collaborate across organizations, making them ideal targets for impersonation.
Executives and R&D leaders’ voices and images are often public, increasing the risk of deepfake voice or video scams.
Sensitive data, such as genomic research or clinical trial results, has high black-market value, making even small security lapses costly.
To stay ahead, biotech organizations must integrate AI threat awareness directly into their cybersecurity awareness training for employees as part of your core defense strategy.
5 Ways to Update Your Cybersecurity Awareness Training for Employees to Combat AI-Driven Threats
Human error is inevitable—but with the right training, you can drastically reduce the risk. At Pennant Networks, we’ve seen that when biotech teams receive AI-aware, scenario-based cybersecurity awareness training for employees, they become the first line of defense instead of the weakest link. Here’s how to modernize your program:
1. Educate Your Entire Team on Responsible AI Use
Employees increasingly use AI tools such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek, or Copilot for daily tasks. But without guidance, they may inadvertently expose sensitive or proprietary data through AI prompts. One of the biggest cautionary tales biotech organizations should note was Samsung’s inadvertent exposure of sensitive, proprietary data through an employee using ChatGPT. It’s chilling to consider the consequences of proprietary biotech data being disclosed in a similar incident. Concerningly, a recent report found that 48% of employees have uploaded sensitive company or customer information into public GenAI tools, and 44% admitted to using AI in ways that go against their company’s policies. So, it’s crucial that you update your cybersecurity awareness training for employees to include:
The dangers of entering source code, patient data, or clinical insights into public AI systems.
The difference between approved internal AI tools and unvetted external ones.
How to spot AI-generated phishing attempts, especially those using urgent or familiar-sounding language.
To make the training relatable, use specific examples—like the Samsung example in which engineers accidentally leaked source code via public AI prompts—to show how easily mistakes can happen.
2. Modernize Your Governance and AI Policies
Policies are only effective if they’re up to date. Many biotech companies still rely on acceptable-use or data classification policies written long before AI tools entered the workplace.
Our Pennant experts regularly help biotech organizations refresh these governance documents to cover:
AI-specific acceptable-use guidelines, including what data may be shared or analyzed.
Remote work and device policies for hybrid biotech teams.
AI oversight procedures, ensuring compliance with HIPAA, FDA, and other industry regulations.
With clearly defined rules, your teams can innovate confidently while maintaining compliance and protecting sensitive data.
3. Implement or Update Your Social Engineering Awareness Training
Social engineering attacks are adapting and your training should be too. Continuous programs powered by platforms like our partner KnowBe4 are great. For the strongest defense, our team can also design and manage a customized KnowBe4 employee cybersecurity awareness training program to ensure it covers the latest threats. A good program should include:
Realistic phishing simulation tests, including AI-generated emails and deepfake audio calls.
Tracking of user risk scores over time.
Targeted micro-trainings that adjust based on employee performance.
This kind of continuous learning helps your employees recognize evolving social engineering cues—like slightly off lip-sync in a deepfake video or irregular phrasing in an “executive” message.
“When training evolves with your threat environment, it becomes more than a checkbox—it reduces your business risk to protect your research, investors, and reputation,” Nichols explained.
4. Test Your IT Team’s Readiness with Tabletop Exercises and Penetration Testing
Your IT team also needs updated training, but even the best training can’t replace hands-on practice. We recommend expert-led tabletop exercises to help your IT team practice incident response procedures and discover hidden gaps in your IR communication and processes. Tabletop exercise should include:
Custom biotech simulations, such as AI-driven IP theft or data exfiltration scenarios.
Deepfake crisis drills, where teams must identify and respond to synthetic audio or video messages.
Post-exercise debriefs, providing clear, actionable feedback to improve response times and coordination.
These sessions reinforce the importance of preparedness and help your teams make confident, fast decisions under pressure.
5. Build and Rehearse Response Playbooks
A modern cybersecurity awareness training plan isn’t complete without incident response playbooks that guide staff through real-world incidents.
For biotech organizations, this might include:
Handling an AI impersonation of an executive requesting data or wire transfers.
Responding to data leaks from unapproved AI usage.
Coordinating with security teams to contain and report suspicious activity quickly.
Pennant helps biotech organizations author, test, and refine these playbooks, ensuring every employee—from lab techs to executives—knows their role in a crisis.
You can also find additional tips and strategies to strengthen your human and technical defenses in our checklist, How to Reduce Your Risk from AI-Enabled Phishing and Deepfake Attacks.
The Bottom Line: Awareness Is Your Strongest Biotech Security Tool
AI is rewriting the rules of cybersecurity and cyberattacks, so your cybersecurity awareness training for employees has to evolve to ensure your team can spot and defend against AI-enabled phishing, deepfakes, ad poisoning, and more. If your team does not have the time to stay on top of the latest attack trends to administer training, our Pennant team of biotech IT experts can design and implement a customized cybersecurity awareness training for employees using our partner, KnowBe4’s platform.
We can also help you identify human risk areas, deploy adaptive training, and build updated policies and response playbooks for AI misuse or data exposure—all while taking the stress off your IT team.
Don’t wait for an attack to expose your weakest link—contact Pennant’s biotech IT experts today to build a safer workforce.
This post originally appeared on %P. Quantum Sol LLC. is affiliated with Pennant Networks, LLC.